The 10th of December marks the 70th Anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. It’s a pretty interesting document – not least because, if you peruse its contents, it contains an array of “rights” that have largely fallen by the wayside here in modern, neoliberal society.

This is a piece I penned a bit more than a year ago on a closely related concept; which I’m re-running, because I feel it’s relevant:

“Doing some thinking about First, Second and Third Generation Human Rights this morning. [often thought of as ‘Negative Rights’, ‘Positive/Economic Rights’, and ‘Post-Materialist’/’Group’/’Identity’ rights, respectively [although the third one’s somewhat vague]]

Specifically, about how one of the most pernicious effects of the ongoing Neoliberal revolution has been to almost completely strip serious discussion of Second Generation Rights out of our public and political discourse. Once upon a time [during the heyday of the Post-War Economic Consensus which immediately preceded these dark times], it was entirely uncontroversial to speak of a “Right to Work” (and not just any work “just and favourable conditions of work” also turns up in the relevant enshrinements), the right to join a Union, the right to medical care, and the right to state assistance when economic times were tough. These weren’t just European innovations, or misty-eyed arcs of internationalist idealism either – they formed a serious bedrock of politics the Western World over … even (perhaps surprisingly) that much-hyped ‘individualist’ “paradise” America. (New Zealand, it may interest you to know, still has a theoretical duty under various forms of international law to guarantee much of the above)

But these days, all of that has passed. Through a combination of active and passive de-emphasis.

The ‘active’ components have been straight-forward enough. Progressive waves of legislation (mostly starting with the ‘Ruthanasia’ era under National – and the Employment Contracts Act in particular standing out as a bit of a death-knell piece of work) first cast many of these rights more as ‘guidelines’ (i.e. things which didn’t have to be upheld or bothered about, really) – and then steadily eroded them down into nothingness over time.

Nowadays, you’d probably get laughed out of the building and/or job-queue at many places if you seriously attempted to insist upon a right to unionization [even if there are some seriously devoted Union organizers out there who make it their life’s work to try and reverse this sad and sorry situation]; whilst the ongoing litany of protections formerly enshrined in law yet now taken away [such as smoko-breaks most recently, and guaranteed hours, job-security within the first ninety days and so many other things before that] continues to mount up by the year.

But it’s the more ‘passive’ processes that have been dominating my thinking this morning.

In specia, the curious way in which the ideologues and adherents of this Neoliberal perfidy have so successfully shut out ‘2nd Generation Rights’ from the debate by comprehensively re-focusing our attentions upon those rights drawn from the generations of the 1st and the 3rd.

Take a look. We see no shortage of economic right wingers jumping up and down most vociferously in defence of the Right to Freedom of Speech. LEft-wingers, too, will often be pretty enthusiastic about this (provided, of course, that the free-speech exerciser is not a “Nazi” – although if he or she is, then that opens up a fresh attention-focusing discourse about the proper and justifiable limits of Free Speech, continuing to mold the conception of ‘rights’ in the public imagination as being about this sort of thing rather than, say, your right to a fair day’s work for a decent day’s pay). And with political proposals to alter our abortion laws setting gums a’flap this Election Season, no doubt the ‘Right to Life’ (with all the attendant permutations of position on both sides of that particular modern debate) will shortly be joining its rather more frequently invoked cousin.

So that’s the first prong of it.

The second prong, if you like, is this newfound focus on some of those Third Generation Rights which I mentioned earlier. In specia, the ones about group-identification and self-actualization. Not that there’s anything wrong with these things, of course (any more than there’d be something wrong with freedom of speech). But when it comes to rights-discourse, it is inescapable that the group-rights being talked about are far more likely these days, to be the right to identify with the sexuality and gender of one’s choosing rather than to identify as a Union member.

There is, perhaps, a bit of an irony here – in that whilst the 2nd Generation Rights I referred to above tend to require fairly monumental expressions of collective will & political engagement in order to first actualize, and then maintain and enforce … due to the way that Identities are constructed and disseminated under our present econo-cultural system, the expression of 3rd Generation Rights [some of them, anyway], despite nominally featuring collectives, can often effectively be conducted with only one’s self. [or, more darkly, with the addition to the equation of somebody to dream up a way of commodifying and selling the ‘identity’ and its accouterments to you]

Indeed, some analysts have suggested that this is part of an at least semi-deliberate ploy to undermine solidarity in pursuit of improved economic conditions through getting people to ‘aspire’ off in different directions (and along post-materialist paths of development) instead. [because ‘Atomized Individuals’ who think of themselves as snowflakes are rather easier to corral and economically disempower than is the whole careening avalanche of frozen water together]

I’m not sure I’d go quite that far; and it’s definitely worth re-iterating that despite the way they’ve potentially been used to ‘crowd out’ the discussion of other rights, 1st and 3rd generation rights ARE important and DO have their place when it comes to shoring up the protections of what it means (and how it means) to be Human.

But nevertheless, something to think about next time you see somebody grandstanding (whether from a liberal or a conservative point of view – you hear ‘rights’ invoked in both contexts almost as much these days) about the Rights we hear about most these days.

Namely: “What happened to all the OTHER rights we used to enjoy?” [i.e. those predominantly of the 2nd Generation]; and “How can we make them part of the conversation again with a view to bringing them back?”

Because these things are Important (hence why they were recognized and enshrined as ‘Rights’ in the first place); and it is both sad and significant that we now find ourselves existing in their apparent effective absence.

The ‘Damnatio Memoriae’ process of first dismembering them, and then degrading their salience in the public-political imagination until it’s barely remembered that they were even once there … has evidently been a highly effective one.

A thought that’s been gestating in my head these past few days about the Yellow Jackets “political moment”, is how … I guess you could say that “populism” looks like *very* different things to different people.

And, more specifically, how any genuine upswelling of ordinary-people political sentiment which is not *vigorously* (self) branded, will find itself seemingly inevitably co-opted by people far-removed from the context in question. Often in *direct contradiction* of anything actually being advocated/agitated for by the relevant Movement.

If “populism” is “the politics of opportunism” – then it is both the mass-collaborative art [a ‘flash mob’ we might have said, ten years ago .. if those are still a thing] of seizing an opportunity, creating an opportunity in order to be heard *en masse* where you’d previously been ignored as individuals …

… but it is *also*, apparently, a politics beset and bedevilled by “opportunists” seeking to coast or I suppose to “surf” [and then, with regrettable commonality, to “serf”] the ‘wave’ of the onrushing tide of the Body Politik to their own advancement.

Now, if all of that seems a bit abstract … allow me to proffer an example.

The below-linked screencap is from a young American conservative commentator by the name of Charlie Kirk. If you haven’t heard of him, or of the organization he represents – “Turning Point USA” – then I do apologize most deeply for (dis)abusing you via this introduction.

Suffice to say, he’s of that peculiar flavour of American who has concluded that anything he doesn’t like is literally “Socialism”.

And, correspondingly, with the certitude of one only possessed of hammer-(and sickle) shaped glasses, that anything he *does* like is therefore inherently “anti-socialist”.

Now, we shall leave aside for the moment the fact that Kirk appears to have – whether inadvertently, or intentionally – confused a bunch of *English* protesters chanting something about Trump … for Frenchmen (a situation of ethno-political confusion, given that that flare-point captured on the video referred to, was a #Brexit demonstration, which *both sides* should find endlessly egregious!).

The key element that has defined the Yellow Jacket protests has been what it is opposed *to*. The Neoliberal technocratic-elitism which Macron is the emblematic standard bearer for, these days. And not least because he was literally elected, and then hailed, as “the antidote” or “the barrier” [but apparently, really rather more of “the speed-bump”] to “populism”, to “democracy” which might produce “the wrong outcomes” …

Perhaps French politics might be viewed like a steam-engine. Either the building pressure when there is fire under the body-politik – either it gets dissipated as hot-air through ‘safe’ release valves, or it builds up until the mighty ‘locomotive of history’ [to reference me some Marx] begins to chug inexorably, ineffably forwards. Or the whole thing explodes, which is always fun.

But to return to the reasoning behind this potential naescent “revolutionary moment” (yes, I’m wildly over-egging things there. How else to varnish?) – Kirk has seized, no doubt, upon the fuel-tax and upon the fact that France is relatively to the left of America on economic matters … and decided, based on these limited two data-points that this therefore means it’s a “squeezed middle” uprising against “SOCIALISM!!! ™”.

Yet it is, in point of fact, the exact opposite.

As many people have, by now, pointed out, the fuel-tax hike proposed by Macron is not exactly a “socialist” policy. Indeed – it is a fundamentally *neoliberal* one. Which seeks to continue the long and woefully disappointing legacy of neoliberal-right political figures attempting to ‘pass the buck’ for internalizing the externalities which have produced runaway climate change … from those *actually largely responsible for it* in various parts of the private (and, yes, to be fair, public) sectors of the corporate-driven world , to ordinary consumers and citizens. Which often, not at all coincidentally, entails a shift in the burden of paying for the ‘cleanup efforts’ from some of those *more* able to pay, in globe-spanning firms … to some of those *least* able to pay, in those same firms’ lowest-paying jobs or on the unemployment bread-line. And which, again entirely uncoincidentally, means a shift from those who have a disproportionately *loud* voice in the polises and the politics (psephological or *actually-influential*) of the world , to those who have the disproportionately *unheard* whispers upon its margins.

Further, despite France being – by any objective measure – a country that has spent much of its history to the “left” of America on matters economic … the protesters thronging the streets of that former country are *not* demanding the Great Dismantlement of the French welfare state, or of the ‘Continental Capitalist’ economic model. Indeed, quite the opposite.

It’s *Macron* who’s been doing that – with all of his utterly ridiculous rhetoric about ‘running France like a tech-industry “start-up”‘, et cetera.

The general trajectory amongst the “grassroots” of French politics, meanwhile, has been to push *back against* that, and do the demanding of the *reinstatement* of those state-directed protections which Macron and his wealthy associates have been attempting to strip away.

Indeed, phrased in these terms then , if we are to talk about the overall tax-situation of France … it isn’t just that Macron has been attempting to impose this significant tax-hike upon ordinary French citoyens. It’s that he’s doing this immediately after having *slashed* the taxes of the most wealthy, and of large firms.

That is to say, he’s simply once again *shifted* the burden on to those who are *less able* or even *least able* to afford it, from those who could better do so – both socially and economically.

It’s also, on a side note, why I’m appalled every time I see the Washington Post attempt to frame the Yellow Jackets’ demands for the rollback of the diesel tax-hike as illogical and self-defeating on grounds that – again, in the WaPo “Voice of the Resistance” ‘s view – it’ll necessitate spending-cuts in welfare and other areas of state spending in the economy (which, to WaPo’s credit, it acknowledges are services the Yellow Jackets are *also* pretty keen on).

Because not only are said curtailments of service and of state *already happening anyway*, in order to pay for (in part) the *previous* rounds of fundamentally regressive tax-cuts and to directly facilitate Macron’s odiously pro-business, pro-Eurozone agenda … but instead of attempting to pretend the choice is simply between “fuel tax plus services [that’re disintegrating *anyway*]” or “remove fuel-tax but also remove services” – the reality is there really *is* an alternative, “another way” (that of *restoring* the revenue-streams from other areas which Macron has slashed). However rhetorically inconvenient it might be for Macron’s various technocratic-elitist backers across both the political and the media worlds.

But I digress.

The point here, is that it is a very curious form of “socialism” indeed which seeks to put the screws on ordinary people at the bottom of the heap in order to support the finance-sector, and private enterprise from both one’s own country and more especially, from abroad. Admittedly, it *might* be viewed as an adequate encapsulation of many of the problems of the present-day People’s Republic of China … but despite the previous popularity of Maoism in, say, 1968 France, I do not think that one can conceivably refer to Macron as a Maoist, still much less as a Post-Maoist with Deng-ist Characteristics.

Yet leaving aside the litany of actual French people boldly proclaiming it … I suppose we might be being a bit too harsh on poor old Charlie for apparently being unable to perceive that the Yellow Jacket movement is, in point of fact, a sustained assault *on* the technocratic-neoliberal Western “order”.

You see, Kirk and his beliefs cannot even really *see* this aforementioned “technocratic-neoliberal” edifice … for the exact same reason that, to quote messers Gaiman & Pratchett, “people in Trafalgar Square can’t see England”. (And having referenced that most excellent work of apocalyptic fiction, Good Omens, I should also perhaps note the French protester who boldly proclaimed that while Macron was busy talking about “the end of the world” [in reference to the admittedly pressing issue of global climate change] , the Yellow Jackets themselves were speaking of – and fretting over – “the end of the month”, i.e. how to get by and survive to then, on a month-by-month and week-by-week basis].

He’s also pathologically, categorically unable to acknowledge the idea that … accepting for a moment that the French political-economic system falls under the rubric of “socialism” [it doesn’t .. not really .. but for Charlie, we’ll humour him, just this once …] … people might actually *voluntarily choose* to live under a “socialist” system – or even, more especially, *having* lived under such a system previously, that they might *voluntarily choose* to do so *again* if and when it starts being undermined and eroded around them.

A similar phenomenon can be observed when Neo-Neo people and other defenders of a certain sort of potentially partially post-modern Liberal Triumphalism , are completely unable and unwilling to accept the idea that reasonably large numbers of Russians might want to go back to the Soviet system, having seen just how bad things went under Yeltsin etc.

So it’s no wonder, I suppose, that he insists that people wanting to move – relatively speaking – back *towards* the economic left, and *run screaming for the hills* [well, for the barricades, really – France is bold like that] from more-monetarist-more-problems Financier’s Neoliberalism …. that these people are somehow attempting to overturn “socialism”.

Although I nevertheless find it highly amusing that he’s *also* chosen to label this as an attack on “Cultural Marxism”.

Not simply because, as I’ve capaciously argued elsewhere, there really is no such thing [there are another set of trends observable in a number of societies that *do* somewhat correlate to what some people mean by “Cultural Marxism” .. it’s just that these almost invariably turn out to *actually* be “Cultural Capitalism” and/or “Cultural Liberalism” – with these actual-antagonists employing the age-old distractionary tactic of “HEY LOOK OVER THERE AT THAT OTHER THING!” in order to neutralize and defuse the potential for dissent against them in the broader populace].

Rather, it’s because if you get right down to it .. if ever there *were* such a thing as “Cultural Marxism”, I am *pretty sure* that Article One, Paragraph One of its charter and its depiction would be groups of ordinary people getting together with torches and cobblestones and other implements and carrying out some sort of *seriously unruly* and not-easily-dispersible mass-protest in the streets against their overly-capitalist political would-be masters who’ve been putting the screws on the ‘common man’ overly more than usual, lately.

Or, phrased another way … particularly because this is literally how Marxist theory kinda operates (i.e. crises of capitalism, in escalating magnitude and severity, until eventually somebodies either tear the whole thing down or alternatively introduce a “reformist” (or “Bismarckian” if it goes further/more principled in ambit/intent) policy-suite designed to ameliorate the situation in some lasting, significant manner) …

Charlie Kirk has somehow managed to identify a broadly pro-“socialist” [in his sense of the term] “Cultural Marxist” [in the *proper* sense of the term .. i.e. the one you’ll almost never hear used] movement …

… as being the exact opposite of this all the way down.

One last thing:

This tweet and line of reasoning is also why you can tell that Charlie Kirk and his ilk are not in any way, shape, or form “populists” or otherwise on the side of The People.

Because it shows that when you get right down to it – they do not want an *empowered* people, a critically engaged citizenry.

Instead, they just want – at worst – to replace one set of out-of-touch, technocratic-neoliberal elites with another.

It’s pretty interesting watching the reactions in the media to the GCSB disallowing Spark from using Huawei tech in the 5G network upgrade.

Spark et co appear to be pushing the “not allowing us to use the lowest-cost [and most national security-risk entailing] gear cuts into our profit margins. SO WE ARE GOING TO PASS THE NOT-SAVINGS DIRECTLY ON TO CONSUMERS! NICE JOB MAKING NETWORK ACCESS MORE SECURE AND EXPENSIVE FOR USERS, GOVERNMENT!”

That’s …. probably to be expected. Although it’s rather unfortunate that there’s no acknowledgement of the potential desirability of having a network that’s *not* a bought-and-paid-for playground for PRC malfeasance , as a worth-while trade-off for the aforementioned slight increases in outfitting price.

Of greater interest was the revelation that New Zealand has historically been rather circumspect about PRC-produced materials – and that this was only really reversed under the John Key-led National Government. It probably shouldn’t be any form of surprise; and it’s possible that one could argue that it was only in the late 2000s/early 2010s that Huawei managed to get to a point of offering the hardware in question to markets such as New Zealand.

But even so, it is both amusing and very much “playing to type” that Key apparently put such emphasis upon attempting to get NZ providers to start integrating Huawei tech into national infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the newspaper commentariat are hand-wringing about how all of this might affect ongoing trade with the PRC.

And while yes, to be fair, the PRC remains a significant market for New Zealand … the plain reality is that there’s something unwholesome about the unseemly prioritization of nominal trade-flows over apparently everything else.

“Oh, a New Zealand professor’s had her home and office broken into and her car sabotaged, quite likely by PRC agents … WELL HOW *DARE* SAID PROFESSOR CONTRIBUTE TO A POTENTIAL SLOWING OF TRADE BY BEING AN EXPERT IN HER FIELD WITH A BREAK-INTO-ABLE OFFICE AND A CAR THAT MIGHT CRASH IF YOU MESS WITH THE TIRES”

“Look, never mind that there’s a straight up statutory duty for the GCSB to report and advise on *exactly this kind of proposed network improvement* effort. How DARE they do it when we’ve got negotiators over in Beijing RIGHT NOW attempting to lobby for an upgrade to the Free Trade Deal we’ve got with the PRC ??? MADNESS!!!”

And so on and so forth.

Now, all of this would be bad enough … but it’s not like our economic interactions with the PRC have ever really been a “two-way street”.

After all, it wasn’t so long ago that we were significantly penalized for putting proper scrutiny on Chinese steel imports to New Zealand – this, after it turned out that their certification as to quality and safety (done in the PRC) had turned out to be fundamentally fraudulent, leading to construction projects having to be re-done and railway tracks warping under use leading to at least one derailment.

Far be it for me to dare to suggest that a few large corporations operating in NZ, or a former Prime Minister with a key background in international finance … might be more keen on earning interest than the national interest … but it really does seem like many of those advocating and agitating for or on behalf of the PRC in these situations are operating on a fundamentally different set of priorities as compared to the rest of us.

Another day, another case of an American man whipping up ignorance and divisive idiocy via the Twitter medium they’re immanently associated with. Except in this case, it’s Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. And rather than speaking on a matter that is relevant to America, he’s chosen to wade into India’s ongoing post-colonial internal conflicts over “caste”.

Now, at this point it is probably necessary to make a note of the frantic damage-control sentiment put out by Twitter India. According to them, the “SMASH BRAHMINICAL PATRIARCHY” sign which Dorsey was holding, was “a tangible reflection of our company’s efforts to see, hear, and understand all sides of important public conversations” rather than, you know, a sign of Dorsey’s own now presumably a-WOKE-en’ed views on the matter.

And perhaps, this is indeed the case. In which case, I shall look forward to Mr Dorsey, and other senior Twitter corporate figures (Twitter’s leadership team had a number of representatives at the event), holding up signs in pictures which demonstrate *the other sides* of these issues, that they are supposedly also hearing and thence wishing to broadcast.

I know a Kashmiri Brahmin who will be most eager to personally send them some material highlighting the plight of his people since their ethnic cleansing from the homeland – with an especial emphasis upon the events of the past thirty years.

Why the past thirty years? Well, you see – while we often like to pretend that anti-Hindu actions largely ceased following the horrors of Partition … as applies Kashmir in particular, there has been a specific campaign of targeted violence and intimidation aimed in large measure at the state’s Brahmin population, which kicked off in 1990 and has been going ever since. Anti-Brahmin persecution, in other words, is *definitely* not simply a thing of the Partition-era or the Colonial Past.

As a point of interest, one of the resulting outcomes from this situation – which has entailed the displacement of at least a hundred thousand from this Brahmin community, many of them into refugee camps, was the establishment of support mechanisms in some areas to try and help those fleeing their destruction to build some semblance of new lives.

So yes, yes in strict literal terms, it is true to state that some educational institutions etc. have policies that “favour” Brahmins.

It’s just that the bit everybody so eagerly railing against these things tends to leave out – is that far from being the hallmarks of “privilege” … it’s actually generally the *exact opposite*. Mere modicums reliant upon the personal generosity and compassion of all too few, to attempt to in some way help repair the most tumultuous impacts of absolutely catastrophic “disfavour” that has existed in the relatively recent (and ongoing!) past.

Now, yes, the lamentable situation of the Kashmiri Pandits is a bit of an ‘extreme’ example.

Yet it is also – I feel, anyway – an eminently instructive one. For it betrays both the yet-remaining vitriolic – nay, *actively violent* – anti-Brahmin sentiment that continues to exist in parts of India to this day … and also the way in which somebody being wilfully ignorant of such matters could take a look only at one of the *outcomes* of this occurrence (those aforementioned assistance efforts), and draw *exactly the wrong putative conclusions* as to why they’re there in the first place.

Which I would be *entirely unsurprised* to find as the motivation of the “Dalit Activist” who sought to use Dorsey as a billboard. Not, you understand, due to any denial on my part that Dalits, too, have had a pretty rough road in the course of their history – but rather, because of the very real phenomenon whereby a person oppressed, or militating on behalf of those oppressed, not infrequently somehow acquires and attains a unique form of ‘tunnel vision’ that renders them functionally ‘blind’ to the plights of others on any but a most individual (i.e. non-‘systemic’) basis.

But I digress.

The point that absolutely also needs to be made here, is that for many Brahmins – whether they are living ‘traditionally’ or otherwise – the stats, the social and economic stats, show that if there is a systemic “Brahmin Privilege”, then it has widely and almost ludicrously passed by the actual Brahmins themselves.

I mean, to speak first about those engaged in their traditional societal function – it is a matter of fact and common occurrence that a Priest, even if they are not *intentionally* an ascetic, will be living a rather ‘hand-to-mouth’ existence. Partially, this is due to the ethical dictate that they not *ask* for payment – but rather instead make do and live in forbearance off whatever the Devotees requiring of their services feel able to donate. Which is one thing … but in this present modern age, and for a variety of reasons, people both do not seek out these rites and rituals, nor do they often give nearly as much as they once might have (the traditional rates for Dakshina, measured in terms of Cows – appear to have given way, in many places, to a few coins, or a handful of lower-denomination notes. Which are often then ‘tithed’ by the Temple or local authorities, if the Pandit is working under these, leaving even *less* for the Priest and his family should he have one.)

Thus helping to contribute to the present overall situation of Brahminical poverty (whether in or out of their traditional occupations) – where, in addition to the aforementioned plight of poverty-line Purohits, in recent decades we have seen the comparative explosion in Brahmins having to work in areas that would probably be referred to as “McJobs” here – toilet cleaners, taxi-drivers, tea-stall operators … that sort of thing.

Indeed, the recent work of the journalist Francois Gautier, which has focused directly upon this issue, suggests that not only are there disproportionate concentrations of Brahmins to be found in many of these aforementioned occupations (I balk at calling them “careers” or “vocations”), but that perhaps in train with this, the Brahmins of India are also significantly *less* likely to be materially well off in terms of land holdings etc. – and have comparatively strikingly high rates of withdrawal from both primary and secondary education (likely, once again, due to economic pressures).

Of course, at this point there will presumably be a few scratched heads in the audience. After all, many of us can think of this or that famous Brahmin family who’re strikingly well-off; perhaps as the result of pursuing a career in politics or the law, through business endeavours, or through the hereditarily passed-down wealth from the heady days wherein their forebears might have been administrators or other officials (particularly Zamindars) in whichever pre-Independence occupying empire.

But it is a curious thing. You talk to people from the more ‘liberal’ end of politics, and they do not instantly repudiate the idea of a gender pay gap, or of a systemic-wide disproportionality in the number of men in the upper echelons of the corporate world … simply because it’s possible to name prominent female CEOs or rich-listers.

In any case, it is time to confront facts.

There is no doubt that modern India is a flawed society. Although lest I be misinterpreted here, it is probably worth noting that pretty much *all* modern societies are significantly flawed. I do not mean to single India out in that particular regard.

Instead, I seek to elucidate a seriously un-sound trend when it comes to the ascribing of *blame* for why India is not perfect.

Because whether you talk to Tamil “Dravidian Nationalists”, or an array of far left factions, or to various sorts of self-professed “Hindu Reformers”, or “Secularists” and “Atheist-Materialists” … we continually hear this common refrain:

“It is the BRAHMINS! FAULT!”

Indeed, the situation has gotten so bad in some quarters that it’s difficult to even talk about Hinduism without somebody seemingly feeling compelled to raise the idea of our modern religion being more properly referred to as “Brahminism”, and with the not-very-subtle implication that this particular Varna has somehow co-opted and re-written more than three and a half thousand years worth of history and theology and myth and hymn in order to perpetuate a fundamentally self-serving and allegedly heretical agenda.

This is nonsense. In fact, it is worse than nonsense. It is *quite literally* Anarya Screeching.

But I shall not consider these manifestations in greater detail here. It is enough that they are signposted as part of this broader and sweeping trend.

The reality of the matter is that on almost *any* matter wherein the “anti-Brahmin exceptionalists” may choose to attempt to ascribe culpability to the Brahmins, they are operating on a polemical rather than a proveable basis.

I say “on almost any matter”, because there is one area of the Brahminophobics’ ‘grievances’ wherein yes, indeed, it is most accurate to state that Brahmins *do indeed* bear a prime burden of responsibility. That of the maintenance, the preservation, the upholding, and the carrying out of our religion and ways.

Now, I do not mean to sound at all conspiratorial – but it seems abundantly clear that a number of these “Smash Brahminism” types are singling out Brahmins with an intent and an agenda of *directly seeking to undermine* and abrogate Hinduism. Where this is so, you cannot fault their logic. They wish for the Tradition to be sundered – so they attack the Torch-Bearers of said Tradition.

In other cases, where the ‘agenda’ is not directly countenanced (perhaps even by the anti-Brahmin advocates themselves), the implicit motivation seems to be rather different. Namely, singling out Brahmins as emblematic of an established order that disadvantages or discriminates against whichever group or tendency is making the allegation.

And as I have said – I do not for a moment mean to deny or de-legitimate that quite an array of modern Indian society *does* contain these flaws, *does* wind up marginalizing certain groups, in a way that is fundamentally disproportional to others, and unjust when considered externally. (And yes, yes I do *of course* note that my “considered externally” is both a) highly biased, and b) conducted from many thousands of kilometers away).

But to return to that list of ways in which many Brahmins today live a hand-to-mouth and otherwise iniquitous existence … the manifest fact, once again, is that the very same forces which economically oppress and marginalize and undermine these Brahmins, are *also* those which are pretty directly responsible for the plight of many of these *other* groups that often seem to take especial and exceptionalized issue with the rhetorical construct of “Brahminism”.

So let me put it this way.

When we think of a concept like “Brahmin Patriarchy” or “Brahmin Privilege”, what are we really meaning. What are we really talking about.

Because while – again – I am not at all denying that there are some Brahmins-by-blood out there who *are* pretty well off … it seems a most peculiar thing indeed to attempt to single out *the entire Varna* as being somehow axiomatically “privileged” in comparison to all others.

After all – when various waves of invaders seek to break the spirit of Hindu or Indian societies they wish to dominate … who do they come for, and round up, and forcibly feed beef to or attempt to induce to convert?

When we encounter a Sadhu on the road, who is just coming down from the Mountains, bearing most of his worldly possessions (well, ‘tools of the trade’ one might perhaps more accurately say) upon his back … do we look at this gentleman (often possessed of an emaciated frame and leathery skin from exposure to the elements) and immediately conclude “Oh, here stands the illegitimately rich and unduly powerful over our entire society figure!”

Looking upon, again, the sad specter of what has happened to my Kashmiri comrade’s people – do we look at a refugee camp in Jammu, or Pandits driven from their homes to be scattered across both India and the world at large, reliant in part upon the charity and goodwill of others … do we look at these people, all hundred thousand plus of them, and *instantly* come to the assessment that they’re somehow “privileged” in a manner that MUST be “SMASHED”?

Further, I admit that I am biased here – not just due to religion, but also due to personal observance and experience.

I spent several months, as a slightly younger man, stationed at a Shaivite Mandir here in Auckland. During that time, and after, I had cause to observe the life of the Nath Priest that was the AcharyaJI in residence for much of this time. It was an instructive experience, for so many reasons. In particular, I saw that – despite the fact that he was deservedly and justifiably held in serious respect by the Hindu community which had grown up around the Temple, due to the imposing strictures of his lifestyle (being up before sunrise, and spending many hours a day at the Temple, administering to the needs of said community; earning a figure *well below* our country’s minimum wage for what was ultimately a huge workload time-wise; with very little time to ‘call his own’ for other activities outside the bounds his responsibilities there in the context of our Faith) … he was absolutely dependent in many regards *upon* said community.

Far from being some kind of “master” over the people, he was instead the foremost “servent”. With any respect and admiration and acclaim rendered (most appropriately, I again add) to him not being due to any “unearned affixion” of simple station or blood-quanta or imagined political influence or whatever it is that people who go on about “SMASHING BRAHMIN PATRIARCHY” tend to presume underpins this alleged “Privilege” of the Brahmins.

But rather, *precisely because* he had *absolutely earned* this positive regard through his tireless efforts on all of our behalves.

Now certainly, I again acknowledge that this is not always the case with some religious figures. And that false-teachers and Western-amenable self-styled “Gurus” abound. Who may even flaunt their material prosperity, and attempt to turn their position of pretend-power and impressionable “influence” into a status we can very rightly decry as “Privilege”, in the “unearned” and “unsound” sense.

Yet once again I say it, for three times is the appropriate number for its reiteration:

I *cannot* countenance the idea that an honest Brahmin, devotedly and devoutly engaged in his (or, for that matter, her) ancestral Mission, the Calling that they have been empowered to rise to where other men would run …

… I *cannot* tolerate still much less allow to go unchallenged this downright demonic and insipidly infiltrating notion that somehow these incredibly hard-working, iniquitously often-persecuted, and inequitably nowadays *outright marginalized* people … constitute a “Privileged” “Patriarchy” whose very existence (as such or otherwise) must be “Smashed”.

To be clear: I do not disagree that some of the demographics whom Twitter’s Dorsey thought he was meeting with the representatives of, have had a hard road both historically and in Hindustan today.

And I do not disagree that some serious conversations can, should, and *are* being had with a view to improving the societal situation and structure prevalent within Bharat at present. [Although it is, of course, probably necessary to note that what I’d consider to be an “improvement” is probably quite some leagues away from many of the sorts of people who’d prevaricate about so-called “Brahmin Privilege”]

But as I said towards the start of this piece: I *do not* believe that Twitter, and more especially its CEO, are genuinely engaged in fostering and promoting these.

At the moment, anyway.

After all, a “conversation” is an at-least two way flow of voices, featuring multiple parties, and multi-faceted perspectives getting their spot in the Sun.

By choosing to make himself into an ambulatory, semi-sapient billboard for “SMASH BRAHMINICAL PATRIARCHY”, Dorsey et co have shown that they are resolutely committed to only *one* side of the putative “discussion”.

And that’s not really a “discussion”, now, is it.

When it comes to the actual situation of Brahmins across India (and also the broader Hindusphere, Diaspora, etc.) – I shall be *most surprised* if Twitter actually makes “efforts to see, hear, and understand” the realities of this matter.

More than likely, they shall do everything in their power to studiously avert their gaze, whether corporate or individual, from the plight of the Pandits, and the many other ways in which a monolithicized “BRAHMIN PRIVILEGE” makes absolutely no semblance of social-justice sense.

Confused? Consider this – it is not simply that the “Blue Wave” failed to seriously materialize in the tsunami force some had anticipated.

While picking up a reasonable number of Congressional seats is, indeed, a positive for them … not being able to shift the balance of power in the Senate means that most of the hilarious hijinks and scandal-seeking shenanigans some of the more breathless anti-Trump types have been clamouring for are … unlikely, at best. And that is before one considers the potentiality for the Republicans to actually have *increased* their holdings in the Senate.

But looking more closely at some of the newly minted Democratic representatives to have entered Congress as a result of this Election, it becomes clearly apparent that something has changed – something has shifted.

The “Party of Clinton”, the “Party of the Establishment”/DNC types are increasingly being harried from their ‘leftward’ flank.

The trend which reached its first high-water-mark in recent years with the insurgent candidacy of Sanders two years ago during the Presidential Primaries … and more recently which has seen all manner of kitchen-sinkery thrown at Tulsi Gabbard lest she *dare* become something of a ‘spiritual successor’ (with better foreign policy) to Sanders heading into 2020 … has continued with a number of the Democrats who’ve won, as it were, often two elections –

that of their own internal selection battles against more ‘established’ or ‘establishment-favoured’ candidates; and then the ‘external’ ones against Republicans in the actual contests themselves.

What does this mean?

Even despite the somewhat cosmetic victory of the Democrats in Congress – and I say “cosmetic” because when one looks at the facts, it becomes plain that on many issues and in many measures over the past two years, there have been sufficient Republican representatives etc. prepared to vote with the Democrats (and, to be sure/fair, occasionally vice-versa) to mean that there has not been any sudden “capturing” of the balance of momentum not previously held there ..

Even *despite* this ‘colour-victory’ there, the plain reality is that the Democratic Party has found itself struggling to make serious inroads fighting its way “rightwards” into the Republicans, and/or successfully “marginalizing” Trump.

Indeed, one can compellingly argue that Trump’s increasingly ‘interventionist’ striding into the Mid-Terms has had the *exact opposite* effect to what one would have predicted if he were anywhere near as unpopular as any array of media opinion-pieces, Democratic “strategists”, and even polling would appear to suggest.

Meanwhile, it shall be very interesting indeed to see what takes place on the party’s Leftward flank.

Regrettably, one potential and very strikingly plausible pathway ‘forwards’ (that is, in reality, no such thing) – is much like the ‘gabions’ utilized in coastal defences where shorelines are suffering from erosion.

These are large steel cages loaded up with rocks – which dissipate the force of the waves coming into them up into the crevices and gaps, without allowing the actual coastal terrain behind to be seriously buffeted or broken down to be worn away and transported.

How this would manifest, then, in the Democratic Party, would be the slow and steady co-option of these ‘insurgent’ Democrats – until they, too, are part-and-parcel of the well-worn DNC machine.

An early example of this was, in fact, the unfortunate fate of Sanders – reduced, in some ways, to a mannequin in exchange for minimal policy-concessions of the DNC’s national platform.

A more recent instance, that of the recent social-media darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – who despite being a prototypical poster-child for *exactly* this kind of “ouster the Establishment moribund : empower the rampancy of the margins” mentality … has evidently started to find herself under similar pressure in recent months since successfully winning her Democratic Primary. You can see this, particularly, in her dramatic and strident shifts of rhetoric on Israel and related matters – to “toe the party line”, lest she find herself cut off at the knees.

[Tulsi Gabbard, by contrast, has previously suffered quite some attacks from what is nominally supposed to be “her own side” for resolutely failing to be similarly compromised]

So that is *one* likely occurrence: the DNC doing what it always does … and proving that “assimilation” is the most successful pathway of destruction, of what would otherwise be ‘radical’ or ‘insurgent’ elements. Along with ‘annihilation’ – or attempts of that nature – against any who will not yield. And ‘marginalization’ of the remaining few who still stand, even if it means ‘standing alone’.

While waiting, I suppose, for the youthful ‘idealists’ and ‘enthusicrats’ who have propelled such candidacies to get disillusioned and disenfranchised and stop bothering or caring – or “grow up” onto the next generation of craven and unprincipled ‘party hacks’ and ‘apparatchiks’.

Another, potentially more ‘hopeful’ development, would be the genuine growth of an ‘alternate’ caucus – either within the Democrats, or perhaps more ‘cleanly’, both inside-and-outside (i.e. much more mamentable to ‘independents’ and ‘third/fourth’ tickets’) , to foster and propel a more overtly ‘left wing’ .. and, for that matter, rational foreign policy, grouping.

Such a thing was talked about during and after the Sanders candidacy, of course. But I am unsure how seriously taken such an idea still is. It seems that the “threat of Trump” has caused an abandonment of such potential sensibility – of multipartisanship, one might perhaps say – in the face of the “usurper of Clintonism”.

A third, parallel development that *is* actually gaining steam (much to my amusement) is some sort of ‘hybrid’ ‘third ticket’ which brings together allegedly “moderate” republicans with the Democrats of the establishment and righter-wing of the party, in order to, I suppose, try and act as a ‘spoiler’ ticket against the Republicans should they run Trump again in 2020 .. but which actually professes to be pushing for a more ‘bipartisan’ set of “solutions”.

The Neo-Neo Consensus spreading its wings and shedding its bi-tonal camouflage, one might perhaps say. The party of Bloomberg and Kasich.

If these two latter developments were to happen “in parallel” to each other – as appears increasingly likely to be at least somewhat the case – then it could very well start to sound the death-knell in meaningful terms of the modern Democratic Party.

Some might be scared by this.

But in all honesty .. while I am no great fan of ‘accelerationism’ for exactly the same reasons that Marx himself was wont to oppose it (the sheer level of human cost and human casualties required in pursuit of this much-mystified “ideological purity” of ultimate outcome) … it is increasingly difficult to see how continuing to support the “establishment” which wishes to see American politics – and therefore, politics across much of the Anglosphere and the World Over , run as an effective “one party state” (with, as a certain Tanzanian political figure once remarked – the characteristic extravagance of daring to have two parties at once with which to do it), is actually a thing worth supporting, still much less “preserving”.

Bring on the “destruction”. Bring on the “transcension”.

Just please, keep it far, far away from here at let us get on with our own domestic political ‘re-alignment’ in peace.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/11/09/why-the-democrats-actually-lost-the-midterms/feed/5Trump Is Many Things – An Anti-Semite, He Is Nothttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/10/30/trump-is-many-things-an-anti-semite-he-is-not/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/10/30/trump-is-many-things-an-anti-semite-he-is-not/#commentsMon, 29 Oct 2018 20:49:23 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=107080

During my .. brief awokenness this afternoon, I happened to peruse the newspaper. And what did I see? Pieces commenting on the recent attack at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. This is, of course, to be expected. But what was *not*, like *at all* to be expected, was the escalating level of accusations in relation to the attack that Donald Trump… is apparently an anti-semite.

I mean … this is ludicrous. Like, I am not wild about many of the things the President has done either inside or outside of office (more on that in a moment), but it just seems straight-up counterfactual to level s uch a charge at him.

Some might respond to allegations of being anti- this or that race by claiming they have “[x-race] friends”, or even “some of my best friends are [x]”. Trump’s daughter ‘converted’ (insofar as such a thing is held possible) to Judaism, unless I am mistaken, as part of her marriage efforts to Jared Kushner. The same man who, perhaps because he has such influence over Trump as his warmly-regarded son-in-law, took up a prime position in the White House at the very heart of the Trump Administration – from whence he forced out Steve Bannon, from whence he negotiated a huge arms deal with Saudi Arabia, and from whence he has continued to exercise a capacious (and I would argue, destructive) influence over the Administration’s policy.

If Trump really were an anti-semite, this would be a peculiar state of affairs to have happen.

Speaking of Trump’s personal associations – even CNN (and seriously, how did we reach a point wherein CNN is a voice of reason ??) – was at pains to point out that “Many of Trump’s past business associates and lawyers are Jewish”, and therefore that “it’s not credible to argue he is an anti-Semite.”

Not least, I suppose, because one of Trump’s first actions upon hearing of the attack was to vigorously denounce it *as* an anti-semitic action, and to vitriolically castigate anti-semitism as a “vile hate-filled poison”, “one of the ugliest and darkest features of human history.”

Because that’s what anti-semites do, right? Talk stridently and without equivocation *against* anti-semitism?

Further, when we look at Trump’s foreign policy, we do not see actions against Israel or Israeli allies. Instead – quite the contrary. We see some of the most pro-Israel stances of any President of the past few decades. Who else would have moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem? Who else would have torn up the Iranian nuclear deal in order to lock-step support Netanyahu-s wide-eyed and white-walled conspiratorial claims on the subject? And who else would have uncritically put such screws upon aid to Palestinian refugees and representative organizations while carrying out missile bombardment of one of the few effective opponents to Israeli regional hegemony. (ok, well, to be fair, Clinton would probably have gone a bit further on that last score … putatively all the way to Damascus, even)

In terms of Trump’s actions, rhetoric, and associations, I am afraid I am just not seeing how he is supposedly “anti-semitic”.

Indeed, quite the contrary – “philo-semitic” may be a more accurate label.

Yet what “evidence” was put forward to support or endeavour to substantiate this particular charge? Well, the implicit thrust no doubt, goes something like this:

“Trump is a Nazi, therefore OF COURSE he’s an anti-semite! Can’t be a non-anti-semite Nazi!”

But of course you can’t *say* that … because it’s plainly non-sensical (although there’s some rather interesting material in Hannah Arendt’s ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’ on a somewhat related note … we’ll uh .. we’ll leave that for now).

So apart from the general “has stoked national tensions” route (which is peculiar, because you would think that Trump stirring up *anti-Islamic* sentiment, particularly with regard to Israeli security concerns, would be *the opposite* of anti-semitic…?) ; it would appear that he is being attacked for, among other things, speaking about the level of power that big US financial institutions have over both American politics and the American – and therefore global – economies.

Which is … odd, because that’s … not exactly untrue.

I do note with interest, furthermore, that he was one of only two ‘major’ Presidential candidates to be proposing the restoration of the Glass-Steagall legislation which sought to keep more risky ‘Wall St’ investment banking activities separate from ‘Main St’ savings-and-loan institutions (inter alia – I’m simplifying drastically; suffice to say, its abrogation under the Clinton Administration was one of the direct underpinnings of the Global Financial Crisis in the late 2000s).

The other candidate, of course, being Bernie Sanders – who did not shy away from making very similar piquant observations. And, to be fair, who occasionally got attacked as an anti-semite … but with a lot less pick-up and cut-through because he is, of course, also Jewish.

A further area Trump has been attacked upon, has been the way in which he has rhetorically castigated George Soros in 140 characters or less from time to time. Now, certainly, it is possible to attack Soros in a manner that is plainly, blatantly anti-semitic. It is also possible to attack Soros in a manner that is more ‘covertly’, anti-semitic.

But it is *also* possible, as it happens, to simply speak against him on grounds that he is a billionaire “liberal activist” (this is literally how he was described in terms of occupation in the newspaper i was reading earlier – which was endeavouring to be favourable toward Soros and oppositional toward Trump), who regularly makes very large donations to the causes that he likes.

Nobody disputes that this happens. And if one is opposed to these causes – for example, because the guy is donating to rival political candidates … then does it axiomatically become anti-semitic to state the actual fact that a wealthy figure is making large financial contributions to political causes?

Would it still be anti-semitic if Soros was an Anglo-Saxon WASP doing exactly the same thing? Under the apparent ‘logic’ these people are using … quite probably so, as the thematic trope of a wealthy financier responsible for propelling a world-view is apparently intrinsically a Jewish stereotype or something.

Without wishing to support in any way, actual anti-semitic in character, content, and motivation attacks against Soros … allow me to suggest something different:

Namely, that the penalty for large-scale participation in politics is to be attacked for it. It is an inevitable part of involvement in the political – much more, the psephological – game.

This does *not* mean that all attacks are valid or are to be allowed. As I have said, the ones based purely around somebody’s notional ethnic heritage alone, can very much be vigorously opposed. And for that reason alone, surely.

But it appears at this juncture that the people seeking to have Trump hung as an anti-semite, on the basis of his attacking a wealthy donor who has made generous contributions to his opposition … are wishing to ‘have cake and eat it too’. By implicitly stating that Soros (or anyone else for that matter – provided they are anti-Trump, I presume) should be allowed to engage in politics, and *make* such large-scale contributions to the field of same … but be utterly immune to and above any form of scrutiny or criticism *whatsoever*, on grounds that to be anything other than supportive is implicitly anti-semitic.

A moment’s consideration will reveal the trenchant problem with this maxim in practice.

Now once again – don’t get me wrong. Trump is many things, and many of these are elements to both his personhood and his political persona and platform which can, should, and *must* be most *vigorously opposed*.

But he is *not*, unless I have catastrophically misread something, or the definition of “anti-semitism” has changed to “what a certain portion of liberal commentators seem to think, and never mind what a pretty large proportion of what, say, the Israeli population actually believe” … he is *not* an anti-semite.

To insist, by contrast, that he *is* , in spite of all the available counter-veiling evidence … and upon some excessively flimsy pretenses … is surely to ‘cheapen’ the term. And in so doing, to actually *help* the *real* anti-semites out there by de-valuing the charge.

But hey, never mind that – there’s political points to be scored and everybody responds to a Nazi comparison! Implicit or outright!

Thinking about the National Party’s recent woes – there’s a funny sort of … I guess you’d say “symmetry” to a lot of happenings politics; and not simply in the sense that they occur “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”.

Up until last week, their biggest problem – and the single most important thing that was likely to lose them the 2020 Election – was the fact they didn’t have any viable coalition partners. And would therefore spend the next two years either hoping against hope to somehow *increase* their share of the vote to pretty much unprecedented above-50% levels on Election Night, or that ACT would inexplicably undergo an act of meiosis in its Caucus.

Neither were especially likely, for any number of reasons.

Yet as of Monday a week ago, an implosion-process began which could very easily have stood up alongside ACT from ~2009-2011, the Conservative Party in 2015, or United Future at a number of occasions broadly commensurate with “times post-2002 when it’s had more than one MP”.

Yet this has not – thus far, anyway … it’s still relatively early days – seemingly eventuated.

And while it might seem *entirely* premature to suspect so, a mere thirteen days after the first sign of an actual explosion … in a curious manner perhaps not unakin to a fire being unable to properly ignite and engulf due to an altogether too densely packed bundle of kindling, the very fact that National is so presently bereft of ‘friends’, may mean that no large-scale double-digits tumbling in the polls will yet eventuate.

Much of the reason for this, is because there is simply nobody else on the (centre) right of NZ politics whom the average Nat supporter will yet consider switching over to. It’s always possible (even perhaps likely) that “swing voters” in the middle will continue bleeding away from Blue to Red, to Labour’s net advantage; and perhaps some modest few (with much, likely in their property portfolios, to be modest about) will attempt to re-invigorate ACT.

It is, of course, vaguely possible that should the sparks from last week’s incipient explosion manage to migrate into the ship’s magazine, that the ensuing larger-scale and ongoing detonations may somewhat ‘force’ the issue, and render it unavoidable that an array of more numerically significant Nat support gets “blown away” and/or attempts to strike out upon their very own Raft of the Medusa (so-named, not just due to the rather famous painting, but also due to the probability of one Judith Collins – either in person or merely in spirit – being upon its black-tinged sails (that’s another classical metaphor – in this case, in the direction of Theseus)).

But barring a sudden endeavour in political necromancy vis a vis the Conservative Party, or the much-talked about (perhaps with a sense of yearning) putative possibility of somebody managing to ‘poach’/’re-direct’ a few sitting Nat MPs to set up a ‘right of centre’ party (naming perhaps not coincidental given the previous effort to bear it ..) to assist in ‘gaming’ MMP … there is literally nowhere else for anybody who wants to vote against a Labour-led Government to go.

Therefore, as I said – in a curious way, National’s circumstances are “symmetrical”. Or perhaps we might say that they are a “mirror image”, now (hence why things are now the other way around).

The very same insurmountable problem that had them almost certainly consigned to Opposition for the foreseeable future as of up to two weeks ago .. has now, somewhat paradoxically, become the main thing keeping them even *vaguely* in contention for Government (by polling figures alone), for much of the last two weeks.

That is not, of course, to say that I view the former set of circumstances as “tragedy”.

But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that what we are witnessing now is, nevertheless, “farce”.

So over the weekend, I happened to see ads wishing a “Happy Diwali” on two TVNZ channels. Now, before anything else is said – I do wish to acknowledge that this is pretty cool, and that it’s a mark of how far things’ve come for a Hindu festival (and religious observance) to be marked by the New Zealand state broadcaster. So thanks for that.

BUT – here’s the problem. Diwali isn’t for another two weeks (November 7 this year). The weekend just gone was basically the days after Dussehra, so to label it Diwali is … odd.

Now, to be sure – this *was* about the time Diwali was last year (I know this, because Diwali was also the date that NZF announced it was going with Labour rather than National – so I made the predictable political observation about “victory for light over evil”); however, I don’t think that the difficulties inherent in affixing Lunar timekeeping to the regular old Gregorian calendar is what’s lead to what’s happened here.

Which, to be sure, I have *some* positive feelings about. After all, it puts Indian culture and the Indian community quite literally front stage here in Auckland. And can be thought of as helping to ‘build bridges’ (while also, this year, assisting in ‘burning Bridges’ due to his having to use the event to apologize for National’s sentiments about the Indian community) with the rest of the city.

But to hold Diwali immediately after Dussehra is … odd, to say the least. It would be akin to holding Christmas in early November immediately after Halloween. Or, if memory serves, in that case in previous years wherein the Council attempted to hold Diwali *right in the middle* of NavRatri, where it was compared to attempting to put Easter Monday before Good Friday (see? We *can* make lunar calendars work for secular event planning here in NZ!) .

Now, I am given to understand the position put forward by the Council is that it makes it a great deal easier getting performance troupes and suchlike if they hold Diwali as and when they do – i.e. not when *we* do, so to speak.

And to a certain point, I have some sympathy for that argument.

But the trouble with this is that by continuing to refer to the resultant festivity as “Diwali”, it (mis-)leads to people presuming that it actually *is* Diwali.

So you get somebody at TVNZ endeavouring to engage in a nice gesture (which, again, I *do* think is a pretty cool intent here – and should be lauded, up to a point), on grounds that they’ve heard that Auckland City Council is holding a “Diwali” event, and therefore without doing the proper research, they just kinda assume … and ‘get onboard’ by wishing us all a “Happy Diwali” two weeks early across multiple channels.

Once again – I am not writing this to be ungrateful. *At all*.

It’s excellent that TVNZ has chosen to broadcast “Happy Diwali” ads on a number of its channels.

I just feel it prudent to, along with the thanks, make motion of a gentle correction about the date.

There are several things that need to be said on the most recent development with everybody’s favourite Botanical bete-noir.

First up, despite what various people have said on twitter etc – it is rather unlikely that the Police have taken Jami-Lee Ross in to a mental health facility off their own bat.

The Police *don’t* have the arbitrary ability to just abduct/detain people under the Mental Health Act.

What they *do* have is i) the ability to take you in for an assessment under s109 if you look like you’re mentally disordered in a public place (i.e. if you’re walking around naked in a supermarket with no memory of how you got there or something *then* they can act on the own initiative);

And, ii) under s41, the ability to assist a DAO (who’s supposed to be a mental health professional per s93) who’s acting under s38, in getting somebody who’s reasonably suspected of being unwell in for an assessment etc.

The second situation is more likely what’s happened here.

Particularly given the National Party statement that, and I quote : “Over the past several weeks the National Party has taken seriously the mental health concerns raised by Mr Ross and the medical professionals he has been involved with. That has included seeking advice from medical professionals and involving Police wherever necessary to ensure support is made available to Mr Ross.”

We’ll leave aside my incredible lack of shock (given the overt proximity of both Paula Bennett and Judith Collins to the tip of the spear on this one) that the National Party appears to be flagrantly violating Ross’s privacy in order to achieve a short-term political pantomime-victory.

Under s38(1), *anybody* can contact a DAO about somebody they think is experiencing mental disorder to get the ball rolling. Although like I say – that just *initiates* the process by which the DAO attempts to work out if they need to take things further, and whether they might need police assistance getting you (urgently) assessed by another professional (this tends to involve a proper psych), either where you are or at a hospital, etc.

So, am I saying that some “concerned citizen” in the National Party Caucus called up the local DAO and managed to convince them to get Ross brought into a facility for an assessment, with the ostensible goal of gagging him for the next wee-while while the party re-organizes itself in the resultant breathing room thus created?

Not necessarily – although that would certainly explain why National’s own statement pointedly (dare I say it – perhaps ‘gloatingly’) notes they’ve enlisted “medical professionals” and “involv[ed] Police wherever necessary to ensure support is made available to Mr Ross.”

It’s also possible that a concerned “friend” (or even friend, sans scare-quotes) or family member might have pulled the pin on it; or even a general member of the public.

Although it does have to be said – what counts as “mentally disordered”, even in the realms of professional psychiatry and such (and *especially* in the context of politics, which is frequently Alice in Wonderland in terms of its overall sensibility as an environment and conditioning influence upon its dramatis personae), is often a pretty subjective standard.

And while I *can* see how somebody might try to label Ross’s conduct over the past few days as clear signs of mental disorder (indeed, Paula Bennett has done exactly this – admittedly, from a non-specialist perspective, and with a rather obvious less-than-pure motivation to do so); I can also very much see how it is behavior that fits well within the confines of ‘erratic’, but understandable (and, importantly – not “irrational”) responses to finding yourself in a *pretty tight spot* politically.

There is a very serious risk inherent in attempting to ‘pathologize’ political dissent – as anybody who’s read a bit about Soviet psychiatry knows. And I suppose it could be argued that the protection in s4(a) against being designated ‘mentally disordered’ on the basis of one’s “political, religious, or cultural beliefs […] only” may perhaps not extend far enough if it does not also implicitly protect “standing in the public sphere, metaphorically dousing yourself and your boss in the gasoline of scandal, before casually lighting a match” as an effective act of political conviction.

(I must also confess, that one of my secondary thoughts upon reading National’s statement – specifically the bit about their “involving Police wherever necessary to ensure support is made available to Mr Ross” – was that I, and no doubt a number of others, should presumably be very, very glad that no other NZ MPs or political parties had previously thought to weaponize ‘police-assisted “hospitalization for (alleged) mental disorder”‘ as an effective tool to silence internal-gone-external dissent. Particularly over the last, say, four and a half years or so that I’ve been writing here for TDB)

Yet there is potentially a lot we don’t know about what’s happened with Mr Ross’s situation over the past 24 hours, and it would be perhaps unwise to speculate as to whether there might be other, less ‘overtly’ political flashpoints which may not even (directly) involve the National Party which could have instead lead to this unfortunate situation.

Not least because, if there actually *is* a genuine medical reason for his finding himself sans phone and in hospital, then he deserves appropriate privacy with which to begin to recuperate and rebuild.

It can be a scary as hell thing to find yourself under the tender ministrations of a hospital psych (a situation I have some .. empathy for – long story), regardless of whether one is or is not “mentally disordered” at the time.

I therefore wish him all the best. Not because he has done more damage to National inside three days than the entire Opposition managed throughout a full three Parliamentary terms … but because right now – he’s either unnecessarily hospitalized, and therefore the victim of a grave injustice indeed (even to type this possibility underscores the surreal feeling of events!); or because he may actually be grappling with demons far more profound than anything he might have encountered in the depths of the Beehive.

“Two Chinese would be more valuable than two Indians” – The National Party.

Now while, to be sure, it is possible that this may have been meant as a direct comment on how National’s two Indian MPs are seen within the party as individuals … I think given the surrounding context of the conversation that it is quite clear the National Party does not see the Indian communities within New Zealand in a particularly positive light.

At best, they seem to look upon representation as a ‘bidding war’ between different demographics – who can contribute how much cash to the campaign war-chest; rather than who’d make the best Representatives in the House (not, of course, that National MPs appear to be allowed to do much thinking for themselves, so maybe individual quality is a moot value for them) – or, for that matter, how to bring a broader swathe of New Zealand’s voices into their Caucus tent.

From my observations over the years, the Indian ‘community’ (and it is fundamentally fallacious to monolithicize it into a single unit) has always been livelily split in any number of different directions when it comes to NZ politics. I’ve seen – and often known personally – Indian candidates for every party presently in our Parliament. And witnessed the significant community backing and support that many of them have attracted.

I therefore think it entirely uncontroversial to assert that NZ’s Indian communities are probably some of the most politically active and politically diverse of any of the predominantly migrant demographics here.

Now, I am not so well acquainted with the Chinese community here. And at the risk of running from arms-length or camera-lense pre-conceptions, it has generally seemed to me that – with some outliers – they’ve mostly clustered around National, ACT, and with some support for Labour.

I mention this not to disparage the Chinese community. We are all, after all, entitled to our own democratic choices – and in any case, as I have said, it would be entirely unfair upon those persons in said community who *don’t* vote for National or ACT to tarnish them with the same brush applied to those who do.

But rather – as a matter of political strategy, it seems most curious for National’s er .. “brains trust”, to effectively be prioritizing a community they *already* have significant investiture in (and, it appears, literal investment *from*), over another which is very much a ‘battleground’ between a number of political parties and most especially with Labour.

That is, presuming that National’s outright priority of Chinese candidacies and outreach over those toward the Indian communities of New Zealand, has much to do with votes … and not some other motivations entirely.

I wouldn’t know about that, though. Perhaps we’ll be hearing about it in next week’s tape…

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/10/19/one-indian-worth-more-than-bridges-ross-brainpower-combined/feed/1Should There Be A Statute Of Limitations In Politics?https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/10/08/should-there-be-a-statute-of-limitations-in-politics/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/10/08/should-there-be-a-statute-of-limitations-in-politics/#commentsSun, 07 Oct 2018 21:29:11 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=106232

It is a curious thing. By the end of last week, a pretty appreciable portion of my newsfeed were discussing Clayton Mitchell’s “NZ Values” proposal. Or, at least, that’s what they *thought* they were doing.

In reality, discussion had become dominated by a Stuff hit-piece – also at least nominally pertaining to Clayton’s NZ Values concept – which set out an array of legal circumstances faced by Clayton in the 1990s.

Needless to say, pretty much all the resultant commentary was decidedly non-positive.

But let’s back the truck up here.

Without taking a position one way or the other on Clayton’s proposed bill, it seems rather peculiar that people should be attempting to object to draft legislation based not on the merits or shortfalls of same – but rather, on decontextualized material about something else entirely.

Because let’s be clear about this.

The contents of that article do not constitute a serious critique of the policy.

They are, arguably, not even an attack upon the MP who’s put forward the proposal.

Instead, they are – for the most part – a broadside aimed at a man in his twenties, who would one day “grow up” in multiple senses of the word, to be an MP.

Now, as it happens, I probably have more reason than most to be pretty keen on the idea of *not* holding against somebody in both perpetuity and in politics the various misdeeds they may have committed as a younger man. I freely admit my ‘bias’ in this regard.

It’s also probably worth mentioning, if all cards are to be laid upon the table, that my previous interactions with Clayton have likely influenced me somewhat in my thinking about what’s happened here. Over a span of perhaps two to three years, I’ve generally observed him to be the sort of man who’ll give you a fair go and judge you on your merits rather than simply going off the stench of a bad reputation; and who tends to believe in ‘second chances’ and the worthwhile capacity for human growth.

I guess you could say I’m giving him the same courtesy back in return.

Yet even leaving aside these factors, I’d be very likely taking exactly the same critical stance about attempting to de-legitimate (or, for that matter, to support) a proposed piece of legislation based around somebody’s questionably relevant personal history.

Even the worst men can have some pretty good ideas, from time to time. And amongst the ‘best men’ who have lead morally virtuous lives, there are any number of stupid suggestions for ways in which we might ‘better’ conduct our politics, our economics, our legal system and commercial activities.

I also found myself pondering – as is invariably the case in matters such as these – an episode drawn from New Zealand’s own political history which seems of rather direct comparative relevancy here.

As long-suffering readers of mine will no doubt by now know, I am quite a fan of John A. Lee. Even leaving aside the rather amusing frequency and depth with which I’ve been compared with the honourable gentleman, his tangible record during the First Labour Government as a Parliamentary Undersecretary – a man singlehandedly [no pun intended] responsible for the construction of more social housing in the first six months of his tenure than the National Party managed in nine years. Not, of course, that this is a hugely impressive comparative standard; however the considerable outpacing of modern-day Labour MP Phil Twyford’s proposed two thousand state homes in twelve months by Lee’s 3,220 in half the time may perhaps provide better contextualization for the achievement. Especially considering both the far more ‘uphill’ nature of Lee’s struggles and macroeconomic circumstances by comparison, and the accompanying far greater ‘daring’ he brought to the table through his (somewhat successful) advocacy for ‘radical’ approaches to ensuring the feasibility of construction like 1% interest development loans from the Reserve Bank.

Now, it is inarguable from my perspective that New Zealand at large benefited significantly from John A. Lee being in Parliament. Although, of course, given some of his more ‘irascible’ actions toward the latter portion of his Parliamentary carer and subsequent post-Parliamentary journalistic/polemical endeavours (which entailed attacking both Savage and Labour more broadly for being hopelessly over-cautious when it came to Lee’s proposals for more genuine and meaningful economic reform, as well as his railing against the party’s lack of internal democracy – actions which, according to some, eventually lead to Savage’s early death) … I have no doubt that a reasonable array of Labourites may choose on balance to disagree.

Yet, especially considering the evident success and easily graspable soundness of Lee’s policy, it would seem most peculiar if anybody seriously and strenuously objected to its implementation on grounds that Lee had previously done time in Mt Eden Prison for alcohol-related offending as well as breaking and entering, or had accrued at least two theft convictions to his name as a younger man. This doesn’t mean that such ‘ad hominem’ attacks did *not* ensue, of course (despite what some may think, I haven’t made a habit of scouring the broadsheets and HANSARD of nearly eighty years ago on a recreational basis, so cannot state one way or ‘tuther on such a matter), not least because for quite an array of self-declared right-wingers, attacking a proud and prominent capital S Socialist for a history of “stealing” would be not so much “low hanging fruit” as “finest truffles already upon the ground” – i.e. both irresistible and eminently accessible to them.

But rather, that it seems fair to presume that many of those who’d be resisting Lee’s vision would be either those who’d attack such an implementation almost *regardless* of who was doing it – or, more especially, those who’d attack Lee and his actions almost regardless of what they were.

Now, this latter thing – the exaltation in our perspective of personality over policy when determining what actions we will or will not support – is a regrettably familiar pattern in our politics; and something even more endemic elsewhere in the Anglosphere. Consider, for instance, the rather rapid volte-face of a number of nominally liberal or ‘left-wing’ people to suddenly start supporting the TPPA or US military adventurism, following Trump’s statements against these things.

It can and should be vigorously opposed, not least on grounds that it leads to *seriously* bad policy-making and psephological decision-making as a result.

As it effectively turns politics ever further from something at least vaguely supposed to be a ‘contest of ideas’ , into an effective race to see who can find the least offensive/most engaging spokesperson to sell whatever party’s poison to the electorate with the greatest alacrity and aplomb.

To restate again, because I am sure that somebody is going to perhaps wilfully misinterpret me on this score: I am *not* seeking to take a position one way or the other on the actual proposal put forward by Clayton with this article. This may seem rather inconsistent, given that I opened this piece with an annoyed observation about people spending all their political attention-span talking about personality in lieu of actually discussing policy … but as it is my belief that certain people and certain forces out there in our politisphere have quite the ongoing interest in redirecting political discussion in such a manner so as to further their own goals (hence why it’s happened to Clayton at least twice now over the span of his Parliamentary career, with a bit of a pattern to it that helps to suggest the culprit), this will perhaps be forgiven.

Leaving aside the perhaps ‘conspiratorial’ note in the above, one of the lead institutions pushing this reprehensible trend is our nation’s “news” media – and for obvious reason. Scandal sells, people relate better to personalities than they do policy .. and will be more likely to purchase or otherwise consume stories about that which they relate better to.

Further, given how politicians are generally regarded in our society, a cavalcaded chant of “THE EMPEROR HAS FEET OF CLAY” (to mix metaphors) that implicitly panders to our innate prejudices against our political class is *always* going to be something of a winner. Especially when it can be somewhat tenuously tied to some enduring touchstone of the popular memory (in this case – the Louise Nicholls rape trial, via the personage of Brad Shipton, who’d given two references for Clayton in the late 1990s as well as having a three year commercial relationship with him that was terminated once the allegations against Shipton came to light). Preferably with the insinuation or subconscious suggestion that this seemingly innocuous connection makes the target malevolent or otherwise morally grubby (and really, given there is no direct assertion in the Stuff piece that Mr Mitchell knew of Shipton’s conduct in the 1980s – a period wherein he would have been a teenager – prior to the allegations surfacing almost two decades later in the 2000s, it seems difficult to conclude that the length of the article given over to Shipton is there for much of a reason beyond the stoking of sensationalism and the stench of ‘dodgy by association’).

But to bring it back to “NZ Values” for a moment, and only a moment – perhaps I am naive or irrationally good natured, but I genuinely like to think that amongst the august pantheon of our national virtues are to be found marked quotients of ‘tolerance’, ‘understanding’, ‘compassion’, and ‘forgiveness’. Not in all instances, of course, and not for all men. I am not, after all, here to write something favourable nor exculpatory about that certain former member of the Tauranga police fraternity.

Yet if you simply MUST cast judgement, and the stones of social media castigation for an MP’s past misdeeds when nominally discussing a recent policy proposal they’re responsible for … at the very least, situate them in their proper context. Which is to say, in this instance twenty or more years ago, and of little discernible relevancy to what Clayton’s put forward.

To do otherwise is tantamount to an insistence that a man can and should be barred from admittance into the apparatus of our state on the basis of rather arbitrary and highly subjective assessments of his character and values.

I guess what I’m trying to say, phrased in terms of ‘Kiwi values’, is something along the lines of “play the ball, not the man.”

To be sure, it is not exactly a new thing in the ‘popular culture’ and ‘creative’ industries – when an audience doesn’t respond positively (or, perhaps, as ebulliently positively as some might like) to a work, to declare that it is because they “don’t get it”. That they are, perhaps, “unworthy” of what has been placed in front of them, and lacking in whatever critical faculty of discernment is apparently required to see the masterpiece fo what it “truly” is.

Although I cannot help but note that that is *also* how the “new clothes” are sold to a certain Emperor in the old children’s story. [replete with, as almost invariably gets left out, the corresponding ‘aesop’ at the end, where the child who dares to disrespect royalty by pointing out he’s buffoonishly naked in public, is imprisoned for that most turgid crime of speaking the truth – and especially where others may perhaps dare to hear it and respond accordingly].

Yet this is not even at the level of that famed maxim of Bertolt Brecht – the one about how, if ‘the People’ have lost the Confidence of their Government … it would perhaps be simpler to simply dissolve ‘the People’ and elect another than to get the government in question to change course.

For this is not a case of a great artist losing confidence in his audience, for being lacking in quality and taste.

But rather, a fairly explicit statement that if you don’t just meekly go along both in thought and in word and ‘declaratory’ deed with the Company Line (whether this ‘company’ is Disney or the Democrats) … that you are a subversive! That you are a traitor! And worse than that – that you are either *directly* in league, in cahoots with the dastardly ‘”post”-Communist’ ideological enemy across the sea … or you are *actually* an unperson. Simply some sock account or automated troll-bot, whose genuine opinion can be safely ignored or actively weaponized against what you support. That most supreme of ‘de-legitimations’ – being reduced from ‘personhood’ to some ungainly combination of ‘marionette’ and ‘clockwork’.

And all of this, over a cash-in film trilogy intended to appeal to children and aging nerds with a surplus of disposable income for the TIE-in marketing.

The next step, of course, will be the targeting and identification of these “subversives” – those who have already *dared* to implicitly sabotage a Hillary Clinton 2020 Presidential Run by expressing unfavourable opinion about a forgettable movie three years before.

After all – if it is easier to believe that the problem lies with the intended audience rather than the ‘product’ [whether a film or an extensively/excessively choreographed and staged political candidacy], then considering the significant numbers involved, it is far easier again to believe that the ‘problem’ more pointedly lies with entities not even really *part* of the ‘intended audience’ – yet who nevertheless exert a most malefic and difficult to counter psychic influence over those you covet in support.

With the insidiously broad scope and spectrum of who is liable to be subpoenaed and hauled in for questioning in the context of Congressional and FBI probes into alleged “Russian interference” in the *last* Presidential election … it would perhaps be sensible to suggest to ordinary Americans on social media that they consider adopting, for their own safety, the advisory maxim indigenous to Stalinist Russia:

“First, do not think. If you think, do not speak. If you speak, do not write. If you write – do not publish. If you publish, do not, whatever you do, sign/do so under your own name.

Er … they want to do what? Potentially deport people for, among other things, not being in favour of recreational access to alcohol?

Now, before I continue, I should probably clarify that I was nowhere near this year’s NZ First Convention – so I am simply relying upon the several media pieces mentioning it. If this rather curious statement that the apparently sacrosanct legal availability of alcohol be declared an inviolable New Zealand value did *not* in fact take place, then I of course withdraw and apologize.

And with that out of the way … a brief lesson in history.

Opposition to the sale of alcohol, and campaigning against its manifest harms is, if not a “New Zealand value”, then certainly something which has been part and parcel of the New Zealand way of life since before there even *was* such a thing as New Zealand. Ever since Kororareka gained its unenviable sobriquet as the “Hellhole of the Pacific” in the early 1800s, there have been people here – migrants, mostly, but of British stock so presumably ‘they don’t count’ – who have been vigorously opposed to the easy availability of alcohol on these shores.

It was not simply a relic of our early-Colonial past, either. Laws introduced in the late 1800s gave the power over to the New Zealand voting public on an electorate by electorate basis to decide for their own communities whether they wanted alcohol sold there or not. A not insignificant number voted to go “dry” – and, as a point of interest, some (including my own (former) electorate of Eden, since incorporated into Epsom) did not get rid of their ‘dry’ status until just shy of a century later, in the late 1990s.

This set the stage for a ‘solidification’ of our national liquor licensing laws in the early 1900s – where, as a result of powerful support for the Temperance cause up and down the country, New Zealanders now gained the right to vote on whether to outlaw alcohol sale on a national level.

It may seem rather surprising to us now, but in the first referendum in 1911 a majority of voters – 55.8% – supported instituting prohibition here. It only didn’t pass due to the 60% threshold required for victory. Successive further referendums in each of April and December 1919, actually brought us even *closer* to prohibition – with 49% and 49.7% respectively, and a new lowered 50% threshold to win.

The former of these two referendums also gives us one of the ‘great stories’ of New Zealand politics – as initially, it had seemed that the Prohibition camp had won the vote … up until the ballots of thousands of military personnel still overseas due to the First World War arrived in the country and narrowly tipped the scales back towards ‘continuance’. (A situation not entirely unlike, funnily enough, the Green Party in some previous Elections nervously nail-biting waiting for Overseas Votes and Specials to eke them over the 5% threshold following Election Night)

Amidst a spate of other legislative measures designed to control or otherwise significantly curb the commercial consumption of alcohol (such as the much-maligned ‘early closing’ and accompanying ‘Six O’Clock Swill’; as well as the still in force legislation prohibiting the sale of alcohol on Easter etc., and the Portage Licensing regimen you currently see out West), the referendums continued right the way up until 1987; and while there had been a steady decline in the proportion of support for prohibition over the preceding few decades (albeit, a trend that was starting to show signs of reversal following the end of the 1960s), in the last-ever national referendum on the subject in that year, fully 20% of the vote was for prohibition.

Given the significant changes to our immigration system were only instituted starting in that very same year, it seems awfully unlikely that the one in five voters who opposed the recreational sale of alcohol were substantively immigrants. Although perhaps the suggestion is that even twenty percent of the population in opposition to something may not necessarily vitiate its stance as a “New Zealand value”.

But what is it, exactly, that makes the legal sale and consumption of alcohol a sacrosanct “New Zealand value”? Is it because it’s something we’ve always done? That doesn’t seem an especially good reason – not least because we kept nearly *not* allowing it to be done, either on a local or a national basis.

Is it because it’s something that we seem to do an awful lot of? This is, perhaps, closer to the mark; and you could certainly mount a compelling argument that drinking – often to deleterious excess – is a pretty embedded part of the dominant New Zealand culture.

Although if that is the case, might I point out that seriously high cannabis consumption rates are *also* therefore intrinsic to New Zealand? We regularly rank in the top countries in the world for it; and its broad-spanning prevalence and cultural salience (who remembers Jason’s Tinny House?) would surely qualify it as ‘important’ to our National Identity in a similar way to, presumably, the argument for alcohol to be so?

Yet I can’t quite put my finger on it, but for some reason I don’t think I’ll be seeing New Zealand First vigorously campaigning for (recreational) cannabis legalization, or threatening to deport people who oppose it, any time soon.

Indeed, the population-prevalence of something is occasionally cause for New Zealand First to move to legislate *against* it – as we have previously seen with the party’s calls to raise the drinking age back to 21, in an effort to combat underage drinking. Does this move to further restrict the availability of alcohol *also* violate “New Zealand values”?

Anyway, I’ve digressed.

To bring it back to this curious pronouncement allegedly from NZ First’s Convention, I do not wish to speculate too deeply about which migrant demographics the utterer may have had in mind when he or she suggested deportation as a deterrent against advocacy here for prohibition of alcohol.

But I’m not sure whether blocking the citizenship of Salvation Army members, or teetotaller Methodists, was *quite* what they had in mind.

On a personal note, I don’t drink. Not anymore, at any rate. I’ve concluded, as a result of occasionally regrettably voluminous youthful experimentation that,as a drug, alcohol is not for me. But, then, I’m not about to start vigorously campaigning to outlaw the consumption of alcohol for others – although I have occasionally suggested to people they may perhaps wish to take a look at how much they’re consuming and maybe ease off accordingly.

My Father, the Reverend Rolinson, also does not drink – although in his case, he has the additional reason to abstain of religious dictate (the Methodists, you see, famously avoiding alcohol as a ‘scourge of the working classes’ – to the point that they’ve replaced the communion wine with grape juice).

I recall him mentioning how, as a younger man, his choice not to drink lead to him being regarded as seriously ‘strange’ and with suspicion. Indeed, it caused implicit issues with his father in law [i.e. my maternal grandfather, who worked for many years at DB Breweries], who basically seemed to regard such a thing as downright unpatriotic. (I can somewhat empathize here – I don’t eat beef, also for religious reasons, and in an ecownomy like New Zealand, this can occasionally get regarded likewise)

The danger inherent in elevating the sale of alcohol to something approaching a constitutional right, is that it really does run the risk of marginalizing or even outright disenfranchising/deporting, apparently, not just those who are actually against the sale of alcohol nationwide (or, for that matter, in their own local communities) – but via a creeping implication, perhaps one day rendering ‘strangers in our own land’ (or at least, ‘conspicuously out of step with what it means to be a New Zealander, apparently’) those of us who just don’t drink, for whatever reason.

The Rev. Rolinson’s Father before him was in much the same category of alcohol-abstinence – both religiously, but also in no small measure as well due to having seen first hand the damage that alcoholism could do to a family and to a community, down in Bluff.

I cannot state for certain which way either of my Father or my Grandfather voted in the litany of previous national referendums on prohibition which we have had here in New Zealand, or whether either have ‘actively campaigned’ against alcohol-sale in the sense perhaps envisaged by the speaker referenced in the screencap above.

But the implication that, had they done so, that they would have been “attacking New Zealand values”, strikes me as a most worrisome one indeed.

And not least because it’s clearly manifestly a-historical hogwash; or because it would smack of almost Mccarthyist sentiment against men with demonstrable and stirling records of service unto nation (even while sober the whole time).

Opposition to the sale of alcohol has very much been a ‘homebrew’ movement here in New Zealand, for nearly two hundred years.

I am, once again, not seeking to change – myself, anyway … although I’m not quite sure where I’d be deported if I *were* – the fact that alcohol is legally available for purchase and ensuing recreational use here.

But if we *must* have a conversation around ‘New Zealand values’, which are to be declared inviolable and above any form of serious abrogation … I’d have thought that with the list starting at “Democracy”, this would automatically entail the right to have and to hold and to share a ‘political’ opinion, even on something as seemingly simple as “which recreational drugs do we wish to have legally available in this country”. Without necessarily affearing ejection from the country and the stripping of one’s citizenship for so doing.

Perhaps it is I who am ‘out of step’ with “New Zealand values”.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/10/01/actually-democratic-conversation-around-what-recreational-drug-we-want-available-is-the-real-nz-value/feed/5A Modest Proposal For Russia’s Response To Israel In The Wake Of An F-16https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/09/21/a-modest-proposal-for-russias-response-to-israel-in-the-wake-of-an-f-16/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/09/21/a-modest-proposal-for-russias-response-to-israel-in-the-wake-of-an-f-16/#commentsThu, 20 Sep 2018 18:46:22 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=105550

So now the dust (or, perhaps, some measure of the ‘fog of war’) is starting to clear over Monday’s events in Syria, it’s probably prudent to reflect on what Putin can and should do in response to what has occurred.

At this stage, and especially given Russia’s previously positive relationship with Israel, the “right” being reserved here is very unlikely to include direct military action.

But before I put forward what I have in mind instead of this, let us briefly parse the likely course of events which have lead us to this point:

Everybody agrees that on Monday evening, four Israeli F-16s carried out a missile-strike against Syrian targets in Latakia; and that in the course of this, a Russian electronic reconnaissance plane – an IL-20 – was shot down over the Mediterranean.

American media accounts have tended to basically stop there, except to occasionally add that it seems likely that Syrian air-defences were directly responsible for the shooting down of the IL-20.

As it happens, Russian Defence Ministry statements have confirmed this – noting that it appears that a Syrian S-200 SAM was indeed what brought down the IL-20. However, they have also stated, and at this stage there appears no reason to disbelieve them, that the Israelis deliberately took advantage of the IL-20’s radar profile to provide cover for their incoming F-16s.

Now, an IL-20 is a pretty massive aircraft. It’s roughly thirty six meters long, with a thirty seven meter wingspan; and would have represented the single largest object in the sky at that point, with its turboprop-derived lower speed and regular figure-of-eight flight-path making for a pretty predictable source of screening.

A further piece of evidence in support of this contention, is that the Israelis only sought to notify the Russians of their operation … approximately one minute before the commencement of hostilities.

This matters; as it is a considerable break from how the Israelis have handled the previous two hundred or so airstrikes they’ve carried out in Syria over the past year and a half – wherein in order to avoid exactly these sorts of incidents, they’ve given the Russians ample warning of any intended Israeli air-incursion.

The strong implication, here, then, is that the lack of notice which would have allowed the Russians to get their plane out of the line of fire, was very much deliberate on the Israeli part. And given the periodic successes of Syrian S-200 systems against Israeli jets in recent months (including at least one instance earlier this year involving an F-16 that the Israelis have been forced to admit occurred), it is perhaps not hard to see why.

It is unclear at this stage just what the French frigate also in the area was firing at; or whether it was operating in co-ordination with the IDF.

In any case, the Syrians proceeded to do exactly what one would expect – and, for that matter, what they are completely entitled to do: they attempted to defend their airspace and their nation from the Israeli sortie, by firing back.

This evidently included the use of an S-200 system – a comparatively antiquated Soviet-made surface-to-air missile first designed in the 1960s, and supplied to Syria by the USSR from the 1980s, with sporadic modernization and maintenance occurring with Russian assistance over the last three years.

Now, *in theory*, the IFF (Identify Friend-or-Foe) tagging system would have made it less likely for the IL-20 to be hit by an S-200, not least due to the Russian/Soviet manufacture of both pieces of hardware. But “theory” is a fine work of fiction when it comes to actual battlefield conditions; and evidently this has not worked out in practice – perhaps due to the IFF system aboard the IL-20 being turned off (it is, after all, a reconnaissance plane), or maybe due to incomplete informational sharing between Russian and Syrian forces.

It’s also probably worth noting that the S-200 has a rather notoriously ‘spotty’ record anyway in this department – with a Ukranian S-200 system in 2001 having managed the supposedly ‘impossible’ feat of taking down a Soviet-made TU-154M civilian airliner 250km away from the S-200’s designated target during the course of military exercises, as a result of the missile autonomously attaining a new target lock upon the airliner once it lost its original target, despite (according to the Ukranian Defence Ministry, at any rate) an IFF system and on-board self-destruct which should have prevented this from happening.

It is certainly possible that something like this has occurred with regard to the downed IL-20. Namely, that an S-200 either inadvertently locked onto the IL-20 once it was no longer under human targeting control; or alternatively, that the S-200 was initially locked on an Israeli F-16, and upon losing that target due to Israeli countermeasures or evasive maneuvers, instead re-acquired a new target in the form of the IL-20 rather than simply self-destructing.

However it transpired, it is a tragedy. And, worse than that, an eminently *avoidable* one. Rendered all the more lamentable by the fact that the Russian crew were in Syria to assist in the eradication of dangerous extremists – while the Israelis who ultimately spelled their doom were over Syrian airspace in order to *help* those self-same extremists through strikes against their opponents.

We used to ‘joke’ that it was not accurate to suggest ISIS and Al-Nusra lacked an airforce – as they had the IDF. This does not seem something to laugh about, now.

Anyway, having dissected in a limited way the likely course of events on Monday evening, this now capaciously informs the likely solutions going forward and from the Russian perspective.

It would seem that there were two significant contributory factors here: i) the Israeli ‘bad-faith’ abrogation of the proper protocols for communication between themselves and the Russian Military, in order to attain a deliberate advantage for carrying out their attack; and ii) the regrettable features of outmoded air-defence hardware which ultimately lead to the shoot-down.

The solution to the second issue is rather straightforward: Russia had earlier proposed selling S-400 systems to Syria – a move which wound up effectively ‘veto’d’ by Israel stating in no uncertain terms that they would carry out airstrikes against any such systems before they had been fully installed, regardless of whether they were still Russian crewed at that point. Given Israeli airstrikes are presently causing Russian casualties anyway; as well as the fact that the Russians have already had their own advanced SAM systems for *Russian* defence set up in Syria for some time now, in the present situation of Israeli diplomatic weakness created by Monday’s events, now is the ideal time to engage in such technology-transfer directly to Syria with an explicit view to ensuring that Monday’s events do not recur thanks to half-century old hardware malfunctioning.

The first issue is much more complex, as I would be rather surprised if Russia genuinely wanted to seriously contemplate abandoning its significantly close relationship with Israel – although it may potentially be convinced to ‘downgrade’ it somewhat, assuming that we do not see a repeat of what happened following Turkey’s downing of a Russian military aircraft in 2015 (ironically, a seeming catalyst for the two countries beginning to work more closely together than ever before).

Whether Russia chooses to remain on ‘friendly’ ‘terms with Israel in a militaristic sense or not, the plain reality is that the Israelis have demonstrated that they cannot and should not be trusted to behave in an up-front manner when it comes to the communication and co-ordination protocols essential to allowing them to continue to operate with relative impunity above Syrian airspace.

Russia should therefore suspend this facility they have provided to the Israelis forthwith – and openly state that future instances of Israeli military aircraft turning up unannounced above Syria will simply be treated as hostile, and dealt with accordingly. After all, from the perspective of that IL-20 crew, what else characterizes the Israeli conduct than this designation? Certainly not the actions of something approaching a ‘trusted’ ally!

The net effect of this would be to impose a ‘no-fly zone’ of sorts over Syria – thus allowing operational freedom for Russian and Syrian air assets, and denying precious, vital air-cover to the extremist forces which theoretically everybody agrees need to be wiped out. I am aware, of course, that a Russia-provided no-fly zone in this way would form an ironic (and unquestionably improved!) ‘echo’ of the NATO no-fly zone imposed upon Libya during the ouster of Gaddafi, as well as the no-fly zone which former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was seeking to have imposed upon Syria not so long ago. But that is the case with ‘mirror images’ – everything in them is ‘the other way around’; and so, in this instance, it would be to the welcome relief of the host-nation and positive contribution to a safe outcome to a conflict. Not, as ultimately resulted from the NATO intervention in Libya, or would unquestionably have occurred had Clinton gotten her way, a neo-imperialist ploy to ably assist ISIS et co.

The coming days will, no doubt, demonstrate that Putin and those working for him in Russia’s foreign and defensive ministries, are both more creative and more perspicacious than I in these matters. I shall await with great interest their ultimate decision as to the appropriate response here.

But it seems plainly apparent to me that the hitherto-current approach – of Russia attempting to treat Israel as a potential friend and even ally, whether geopolitically, or in the specific conflict against extremist forces in the Middle-East – has demonstrably not ‘delivered the goods’; and needs to be reviewed with the goal of providing greater assistance and credence to those forces such as the Iranian, Syrian, and Hezbollah military arms *actually* doing much of the fighting – not coincidentally, the exact same forces which Israel seems year in and year out most hell-bent on annihilating where possible.

Indeed, some might say that unless and until the Israelis can demonstrate a genuine commitment to attacking rather than assisting the *real* adversary in Syria – that they should perhaps be treated, in exactly that light, as part and parcel with them, and shunned in a similar manner.

Over the past year or two, I’ve endeavoured to popularize the concept of “Jihad Vs McWorld”. If you want a really tangible demonstration of “McWorld” in action, look no further than the McDonalds workplace policy brought to light by Newshub this evening – wherein Maori staff responding to Maori customers attempting to place an order in Te Reo Maori, was firmly clamped down upon by McDonalds’ management, on grounds that “English is our McLanguage” .

It is no coincidence that McDonalds has declared English to be its “McLanguage”. Rather than, say, the ‘lingua franca’ of its day-to-day interior operations.

The very concept of “McWorld” is the homogenization, the monolithicization of human diversity – the reduction of the spectrum of human cultures and customs down to easily commodifiable and capitalistically, neoliberalistically exploitable kernels.

On a trite level, I suppose you could say that it’s the replacement of genuine Kiwi cuisine with the “KiwiBurger” – an item of culinary cardboard fundamentally the same (possibly minus the egg) as the Australian burger McDonalds marketed in *that* country as something distinctively “Oz”.

And if all it is, this “McWorld”, this “McLanguage” concept, was the endeavour to appeal to soft-pap simulacra-patriotism when entrepreneurially exploiting the hunger of the masses … then that would perhaps be one thing. A ‘bait-and-switch’ carried out with beetroot in a burger.

But that is not at all what we have here.

Instead, it is the concerted effort to expunge the very realities of being ‘human’ [one of which, of course, is that there is no ‘singular’ reality of humanity – and instead many and various different heritages, perspectives, and other nexes of peoples worth preserving within their own spheres] in favour of increasingly incredibly bland vague platitudes.

“Ananda?” No, we won’t have any of that. Simply be “happy” – as in “happy meal”. An emotional stimuli inculcated into us since childhood via the mediums of birthday parties and made-in-China toys-of-the-week. A commodified ‘feeling’, that has as much resemblance to actual “happiness” and contentment as a cheeseburger does to promoting [stomach-]fullness and dietary health.

Your own language, culture, and customs? Nah, can’t have that. Gets in the way of the verisimilitude. Management might have to learn some new words, and Marketing might need to put a bit more effort in. And in any case, a ‘distinctive’ people, who remain ‘disconnected’ from the “realities” of corporate-carbon ‘consumerhood’ as the highest expression and authenticity of ‘being’ – are a harder market to crack and profit-maximize on anyway.

Now, to be sure, this phenomenon is not entirely sui generis. The rapacious history of colonial-cultural exploits includes quite the array of previous comparable instances to draw from.

We could talk about the Macauley educational pogrom (it seems altogether too ‘sanitized’ to simply call it a ‘programme’) in British India – wherein the Brits decided that the key to turning the Indian peoples into pliant, pliable subordinates of Empire meant attempting to rob them of their own ancestral heritages and traditional sources of knowledge, languages, means of instruction and other nexes of nascent identity for the young.

In their place, substituting a very much ‘English’ educational impetus – replete with the trashing of Sanskrit-derived literature in favour of Jane Austen.

The impacts of that most egregious act of wilful attempted civilizational vandalism continue to be felt to this day, in India. Even despite Independence being achieved, there remains a certain curtailment of the permeation of pre-British Indian culture and heritage within India itself as a result – more than a hundred and fifty years after the fact!

This, arguably, is the *nicer iteration* of the fate which awaits any nation – any people, any ethnos, any tradition – which is insufficiently prepared and On Guard to ward off the pernicious permutations of what I suppose we may have to start calling [oxymoronic in the extreme though it might be] “McCulture”.

But if there are not overwhelming differences of ‘kind’ between this ‘Macaulayism’ and latter-day McWorldism [perhaps we shall soon see ‘McMacaulayism’ as a ‘term of (mc)art’ ] , there are nevertheless distinctions of degree which may render McWorld-ism in some parts *worse* – due to its very banality.

I mean, I do not *at all* approve of what is entailed by Macaulayism. Do not get me wrong. But there is a qualitative difference between English, as the language of Shakespeare – and utilized in the engagement with same – versus what I unheartily expect that “English is our McLanguage” presumably entails.

In that regard, this “McLanguage” concept most likely represents an unutterable act of vandalism not just against the non-corporate(//-)metropole cultures it seeks to (neo-)colonize and vanquish – but against the very cultures and language which somehow inadvertently gave it birth in the first place.

McLanguage – and therefore, by extension, McWorld – is therefore a virus, a parasite. Something that is inculcated into a ‘host’, via a ‘carrier’ [funnily enough often from thirty thousand feet, so to speak; or perhaps launched off a rather more literal ‘carrier’ somewhere offshore, in either case to make the way for what comes next] , and which then begins the drawn out process of drawing and quartering its new bio-cultural environment until it has simply remade itself, over and over and over, and sought to most successfully repress anything *not* of itself which might plausibly thus resist it (or – ‘worse’ – allow others to organize to do the same).

That is why ‘McLanguage’ (again, not my term – literally McDonalds’ own word from their own policy and internal propaganda documents, issued in the form of poster-mounted commands to workers) and McWorld are so viciously, vigorously, vitriolically, vindictively *opposed* to the yet-remaining instances of Human distinctiveness, cultural diversity – actually-existing Nationalism that cannot be suborned into simply another ‘human face’ for neoliberal ‘civilizational’-tier nightmare.

Because *those* things – those sacred, important, autochthonous, above all *genuine* things – are the bulwarks, the tools, the floodgates, the ramparts, the *weapons* via which “McWorld” can yet still be meaningfully opposed.

And through such, reminding people – people*s*, in fact, in the definite plural of pluralities – who they *actually* are.

It is no coincidence, either, that successful anti-/de-colonial projects have historically functioned on exactly this basis.

The only difference there, then, was that the subject-peoples [in both senses of the term – albeit the latter only realized in the progression of time once they had successfully reclaimed some measure of agency from the mire of ‘object’-ification *as* ‘subjects’ of Empire] *knew* who The Enemy was, and how to fight him.

Today, we are implicitly, effectively, living in a world ruled by a Clown ; and just as Ronald McDonald hides behind Mayor McCheese in the exercise of temporal power – far too many people today remain patently unaware of this intransigent, indolent fact.

The waging of ‘Jihad’ against McWorld, then, requires the deployment of potent ideological weapons – one of the most important and significant of which being the very idea that there is a War going on in the first place.

And the second, perhaps, being that the ‘tools’ with which we fight the clown-faced oppressor – those of our own language, heritage, culture, religion, tradition, (communication/confirmation), .. and yes, actually, ‘cuisine’, also – are not simple ‘weapons’ of ‘memetic warfare’. But are instead, *also* the effective building blocks, the skeletal – spinal – and nervous structure for the World, the Worlds, That Is To Come , next.

So with that in mind … celebrate your own culture; reconnect with your own heritage; and tangibly reject the globalism – not least by “work[ing] as if you lived in the early days of a better nation”.

Short of imitating the example of anguished Serbians against Belgrade’s only McDonalds immediately following the outbreak of NATO’s air-war against their country; or perhaps more recently, the closing down of symbolic McDonalds outlets in Moscow by the Russian state … that is what we can do. What we *must* do.

Fortunately for us, as far as actions against the McWorld go – whether physical or metaphysical – these are unquestionably some of the most potent!

You know, it is the most curious thing. I opened my newspaper earlier in the week (not in a web-browser, either – I am archaic like that); and saw the Saudi Foreign Minister boldly stating that his country’s recent declaration of economic war against Canada was motivated by opposition to “an unacceptable interference in our domestic affairs”.

Some might say that, as applies Saudi Arabia, anybody choosing to intervene in what goes in in that country is much akin to the man who sees a burning building and then rushes in to try to rescue survivors. Certainly, it is a dangerous prospect to ‘get involved’ (you are liable to get “burnt”) – and smokescreens and incendiary circumstances abound!

Yet what truly caught my eye was the breathtaking display evident in this Saudi hench-minister’s remarks of what psychologists would describe as “projection”.

If you are unfamiliar with the term in its psychiatric context, it refers to something of a “defence mechanism” – whereby a person will attempt to avoid having to deal with undesirable elements or conduct within themselves by “projecting” them out onto other people. It is not always the sure sign of an unsound mind, and one can argue that it’s inherent in just about everybody at some level. But in its more extreme – that is to say, pathological, if not outright delusional – instances, it appears to be especially common in those undergoing “personal” … and i note with some interest, “political” crisis.

Given the significant upheaval which accompanied Mohammed bin Salman’s arc of ascent into the ‘driving seat’ of Saudi politics (featuring the arrest of hundreds of otherwise strongly influential Saudis, and questionably accurate rhetoric about curbing “extremism” and the powers of the clericy), those causative features would appear to render it a pretty perspicacious diagnosis for the situation with Saudi Arabia at the moment.

Indeed, given his apparenet eagerness to “reform” his Kingdom, it is perhaps unsurprising for bin Salman’s mouthpiece to have found it far easier to attempt to decry the alleged excesses of others, than to acknowledge Saudi Arabia’s own severely morally dubious track-record when it comes to “unacceptable interference in [other countries’] domestic affairs”.

Not that I particularly care to keep track of them; but the sheer scale and frequency of Saudi pie-fingering going on in its geopolitical neighbourhood (to say nothing of various international forae) surely places it almost on a par with its allies in the American and Israeli espionage and military establishments.

Less than nine months ago, we were treated to the supremely unedifying spectacle of Saudi Arabia summonsing its pet Prime Minister of Lebanon – Saad Hariri – to Riyadh; whereupon he was arrested, assaulted, illicitly detained, and prodded into delivering an eventual forced resignation speech so transparently elicited under duress I’m surprised he wasn’t blinking hidden messages in morse code during the course of it.

But was this “unacceptable interference in Lebanon’s domestic affairs”? “Of course not,” say the Saudis.

After all, resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister did not happen in capital of Lebanon – but rather, in capital of Saudi Arabia. Following alleged beatings by Saudi operatives, and confinement in Saudi house. So this is prima facie not a ‘domestic affair’.

Instead, it is an international incident.

Although the Saudis will no doubt protest that what happened next was a *string* of stabs at “interference” in their domestic affairs. For not only did French President Emmanuel Macron personally fly to Saudi Arabia in order to extricate Hariri, but the Lebanese had the temerity not to simply accept Hariri’s resignation at face value (or at all) – thus placing *themselves* in the direct path of the ensuing implicit Saudi declaration of war against them. Even that arch meddler in the domestic affairs of other countries, America, got involved in the act – publicly chiding the Saudis, and privately castigating them for what had occurred.

It is a strange thing indeed, seeing the Americans and the French on the same side as Iran in a geopolitical skirmish; stranger still that France’s intervention – as the former Colonizing Power – along with American flexing of hegemonic muscles , may actually have (at least temporarily) *improved* the situation. But fortunately, some normality was restored to world affairs following Israel’s announcement of its support for the Saudi position.

What a loyal friend the Wahhabists have in the Zionist Entity.

Now if you were hopelessly uninformed – as well as heedlessly optimistic -, you might perhaps be forgiven for presuming that this above-mentioned farce was something of a ‘one-off’, rather than being simply one of the more recent data-points in a by now well-trodden pattern.

Yet it was a mere five months before the Saudis attempted their intriguing new spin upon the concept of ‘Palace Coup’ [insofar as the “palace” in question is customarily supposed to be located in the country [in question] whose leadership is being ‘transitioned’ – not a mansion somewhere in Saudi] , in June of 2017, that we saw a Saudi-led coalition endeavour to impose a blockade upon Qatar.

Why so? Well, you see, the Saudis appeared to believe that the Qataris were exerting an ‘improper influence’ upon the domestic affairs of other countries through Al Jazeerah, alongside other mechanisms of promulgating ‘extremist ideology’. And, more worryingly, that Qatar was apparently engaged in supporting a quite bewildering array of armed groups across the Middle East … including al-Nusra in Syria, the Houthis in Yemen as well as the Iranians more generally, extremist Sunni organizations in Saudi Arabia itself, al-Qaeda, ISIS all over the place, and vague unspecified forces apparently responsible for destabilizing Libya. Inter alia.

Now, to be blunt about it .. this is just bizarre. I understand why Al-Jazeerah may be looked upon with distaste by various powers, polities, and people who have a derogatory view on it. But even to somebody with only a vague understanding of the politics (and religious dynamics) of the modern Middle East, that ‘laundry list’ of organizations the Qataris are alleged to have been supporting and sympathizing with ought raise not so much ‘alarm bells’ as a full-on air raid siren. It not only heedlessly mixes Sunni and Shi’ite groups who are often *literally fighting each other* (which would suggest that, if true, the Qataris had no actual coherent foreign policy other than the incitement of general chaos all across that part of the world without any desire for serious advancement of any particular geopolitical aims in so doing) … but if you look a bit closer at it, you will see that almost everything on that list *not* involving support for Iran/Iranian-aligned groups – is actually something Saudi Arabia is or was *itself* doing, and doing quite vehemently.

What is that word for somebody seeing characteristics of themself in another, as a ‘defence mechanism’ against them being identified in one’s self?

Oh, that’s right!

“Projection”!

I will not go into detail with the evidence and the precise ambits here; but suffice to say that the Saudi linkage to both the “spreading of extremist ideology”, and the altogether *too* comfortable relationship between its oil-wealth and the bank-accounts of quite a number of Sunni terrorist or militant organizations … is pretty well-known and well attested.

(Even if the Atlanticist powers don’t care to admit it – a UK governmental report into the financing of terrorism and extremist ideology in that country was prohibited from public release due to its identification of the UK ally Saudi Arabia as having a key role in these activities occurring on UK soil and elsewhere; while a similar pattern has played out with American intelligence documents detailing Saudi involvement in or at the very least permissive awareness of such conduct)

I would further point out that the main two states leaping to Saudi Arabia’s defence in this instance – Israel and the United States (the latter in the form of President Trump’s twitter account, at least) – are at the very least ‘complicit’, if not actively engaged in exactly these same aims. After all, the Israeli co-operation with al-Nusra is a matter of public record – reported on, of all places, in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz; while when ISIS accidentally shoots at Israelis, they are quick to issue formal apology to Israel (and it is the most curious thing, the IDF never *did* clarify just how they got the aforementioned cordial communique from ISIS … almost as if they’d already had a well-established back-channel of [liason] or something).

And as far as the Americans go – apart from John McCain’s beloved “moderate rebel” groups in Syria, I can only suggest that if they have suddenly decided that the destabilization of Libya is a problem, that perhaps they should take a long, hard look in the mirror if attempting to identify the culprits. I do not seem to recall ISIS [or its similar organizations] being in Libya prior to their ouster of Gaddafi (or, for that matter, radical religious extremists setting up armed states all across Northern Iraq and eastern Syria prior to the American ouster of Saddam Hussein, but I digress).

Trump’s statements on the issue appeared to suggest that he thought the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar was a direct result of his then-recent visit there to open the “Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology” in Saudi Arabia.

Now, I shall say that last part again – because it’s very possible, if you’re reading swiftly, and are possessed of a rational mind and disposition, that you’ve misapprehended where the second quotation mark goes.

That’s the “Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology” in Saudi Arabia. Not, much to my regret and chagrin, the “Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Saudi Arabia”. Although to be fair, one could quite sensibly argue that even despite its convenient location at the heart of the hornet’s nest in Riyadh … installing such an apparatus in Saudi Arabia itself would perhaps be akin to placing a few fire-extinguishers in Hell.

But I digress.

The long and the short of it is that the vast majority of the Saudi coalition’s claimed complaints against Qatar are things that Saudi Arabia, and its allies, have *themselves* been the primary guilty parties on.

Indeed, Trump’s statements in this direction (although it should be reiterated that these are not new elements of American policy in the area … simply the most brazen and forthright. And, due to the medium of communication they have been issued upon – the most public, as well as the most succinct. Truly, Trump on Twitter is a blunt instrument) are arguably evidence of *another* psychiatric diagnostic element – the ‘folie a deux’, a “madness shared by two”. Also known as “shared psychotic disorder”, it refers to the curious tendency of close associates to wind up sharing their delusions – creating a pervasive and mutually-reinforcing ‘alternate reality’ mindscape which can bear progressively less and less observable relationship to plainly obvious external reality.

This, of course, handily encapsulates & explains the American curious viewpoint on the modern Middle East – wherein stable, secular regimes are dastardly foes to be suppressed, while religious fundamentalist extremists are the ‘real’ “moderates” to be enthusiastically and militarily supported; and everybody agrees that ‘ISIS’ is a problem , yet all the co-deludees *also* maintain adamantly their position that the main warmakers *upon* ISIS , in the form of the heroes of the Iranian, Hezbollah, and Russian intervention forces are somehow the ‘real’ “antagonists” of the situation.

It also helps to describe the straight-up farcically bizarre situation occurring at present in Yemen – which for the last three years has been subjected to an ever-escalating Saudi-‘led’ and American-supported military ‘intervention’ characterized by indiscriminate bombing campaigns and blockades that have killed thousands. It is *also* characterized by what you might call “strange bedfellows” – for example, Qatar providing both air power and hundreds of troops to the Saudi coalition, yet being accused of being in league with the Houthis; and, more especially, the recent revelations that the Americans, considerably aided and abetted by their Saudi associates, are now *also* allying or otherwise supporting Al Qaeda in Yemen.

Or, to phrase it another way – the Houthis, along with many others in Yemen, can quite legitimately protest that the Saudis are engaged in an “unacceptable interference in our domestic affairs”. From thirty thousand feet, or ‘up close and personal’. Indeed, such opposition to Saudi interference in Yemeni affairs directly underpinned the Houthis’ opposition to the local Saudi Satrap, President Hadi, in the first place.

And it is not like the Saudi ‘interference’ as applies Yemen is limited only to Yemen itself, or the occasional illegal blockade of its supposed ‘allies’ in that confiict – as we have seen with Qatar.

Just under a year ago, Canada and the Netherlands put forward a motion at the UN to have this august body begin investigating allegations of war crimes carried out by the Saudis and their notional friends in Yemen.

This motion of inquiry ultimately went nowhere – as Saudi Arabia circulated a letter to various nations, threatening them with dire economic consequences derived from oil and other sanctions if they supported the proposal. Thus leading to the UK to pledge to veto the inquiry (previous rounds of Saudi pressure including statements from their Ambassador to London directly threatening the employment of “fifty thousand UK families”), and insist that only the Saudis could possibly investigate allegations that Saudis may have carried out atrocities.

Que ipse cucksodiet cucksodem, indeed.

Although I suppose that this means the Canadians cannot say they were not warned of what awaited them in seeking to state truths about Saudi Arabia in 2018.

It may very well be a proposition almost as hazardous to one’s health as “attempting to tell the truth about the Clintons”.

Need I go on?

It should be quite plainly apparent by now that when it comes to Saudi Arabia, “unacceptable interference in domestic affairs” is for them the pattern, the rule.

Provided it is the “domestic affairs” of others, of course. Hence why it is not possible to view the Saudi opposition to Western scrutiny in the context of the ongoing movements away from Anglosphere hegemony – as this is not a commitment to advancing the causes of Multipolarity. But a simple drive toward a Saudi regional hegemony – double-backed and double-buttressed with extremist-groups on various lengths of leash ‘in-country’ as well as massive and almost vaguely Mafia-esque (I say “almost” – I have no desire to insult the dons of organized crime via direct comparison to the foppish, effete, and literally criminally disorganized Saudi tools .. of state) ‘shakedowns’ of the West conducted via mechanisms that are less “oil diplomacy” than they are “oil fire” – that is in no way, shape, or form “multipolarity”. That is simply a more ambitious form of the archaic model of the Tributary-based Empire.

Yet to return to Saudi Arabia itself:

Once upon a time, the Saudis were not at all so ill-favourably disposed toward the notion of Western intervention in their domestic exigencies.

In 1990, American and other Western troops were sent en-masse to Saudi Arabia, in order to protect the Kingdom against the prospect of invasion by Saddam Hussein.

To be sure, not all Saudis were entirely welcoming of this development. If I recall correctly, Osama bin Laden, in the course of one of his interviews with Robert Fisk, directly singled out the apparent necessity of Mecca’s security being guaranteed by American troops as direct evidence of both the degeneracy of the House of Saud (leading to its inability to carry out the ‘sacred duty’ it had allegedly been charged with of custodianship over some of Islam’s holiest sites) – as well as the fundamental(ist) moral imperative of his ongoing struggle against the West.

But for the most part, the Saudi state was more than happy to welcome in the (other) ‘Imperialists’ – anything, after all, to keep them safe and secure from the righteous scourge of a more vital and independent Arab regime to their north.

Yet I have been thinking about this particular (American-led) interference a fair bit of late.

And in light of what we now know … what has since become overly and abundantly apparent about just exactly what Saudi Arabia is, who it supports, and which sorts of agenda it promulgates on the world stage …

I think I may be coming around to the Saudi point of view about non-interference – on that issue, and that issue alone.

That is to say, I can’t help but wonder whether the world might have been a better place had the Americans *not* interfered in Saudi affairs then – and just left the Kingdom to its own devices, its own fate.

I note with some interest a piece from yesterday’s Herald, observing the positive results of a series of changes that have lead to somewhere between six hundred and a thousand New Zealanders fewer being incarcerated unnecessarily.

Now, without going into too much detail as to what’s changed and how – this has not actually involved any alterations in the law around parole, bail, or anything of that nature. But rather, a set of fixes to issues which fell ‘between the cracks’ of existing policy – and which had lead to these aforementioned numbers of Kiwis being placed in prison when they otherwise, by rights, would not have been.

The actual nature of these changes were succinctly summed up by Corrections’ National Deputy Commissioner, Leigh Marsh, as being “embarrassingly simple” fixes; which took as their baseline actually listening to front-line staff across the Corrections, Justice, and policing portfolios in order to try and sort out some of the “madness” (again, a quote from Marsh) of the previous status quo.

I am sure that the reaction from some quarters is going to be howls of protest about how this makes ordinary New Zealanders more unsafe through having hundeds of additional hardened criminals wandering the streets.

Yet the plain reality is, once again, that under our current laws, *none* of these Kiwis who’ve been spared incarceration as a result of these changes, would actually have been jailed had ‘the system’ been working properly in the first place.

A similar note of disquiet can and should be sounded about the ongoing opposition of the reforming of our bail laws to do something about the – again, hundreds – of New Zealanders who find themselves incarcerated on remand, especially for relatively less serious crimes, only to come out following their day in court declared an innocent man; or guilty, but sentenced only to a far lesser punishment.

It is worrying in the extreme that a situation of unjust imprisonment may be welcomed ‘just because’ it may make somebody else feel a little bit safer – indeed, it is tantamount to starting down the greased incline of asking whether certain segments of the population ought be ‘walled off’ for the general protection of the rest of us even regardless of whether they’ve actually been proven to have committed any crime.

(That said, I do have a vague soft-spot for the idea of ring-fencing parts of Remuera and cutting off their access to global financial markets and tax-accountants to see if it lessens the chances of both white collar crime and more general economic vandalism occurring in the wider country … but another punitive policy-set for another time).

The sheer simplicity of these ‘fixes’, and their demonstrably substantial impact (last month’s NZ prisoner muster was ~10,205 – meaning that the reductions in inmate numbers these shifts in policy has achieved range from about five to just under ten percent of our overall prison population), suggests that they should have taken place years ago.

That said, the fact they did not would appear to indicate that one of two (possibly both at once) things has happened.

Either a) National and its various Ministers to have held the portfolio, were incompetent. That is to say, despite Bill English’s declaration of our prison system and our country’s massive incarceration rate to be “a moral and fiscal failure”, it never occurred to anybody in power at any point over the past nine years, to stop and realize these problems – these *easily solvable problems – existed. Or, given the habitual Nat management strategy, to allow or otherwise empower their various underlings to come up with the solutions so that they might more deftly take credit for them.

Alternatively – and I suspect that this is vastly more likely – b) National and its various Ministers to have held the portfolio (including one Judith Collins, in what appears some sort of inverse, ironic, contrapasso of the damned) *were* at least vaguely aware, or should have been, of these ongoing issues and the ease with which they might be sorted … and *consciously* (or, at absolute best, wilfully negliglently/recklessly) chose to do nothing about them. For the simple reason that for a certain portion (although not everybody) of the “law and order” crowd – escalating prison numbers mean axiomatically safer communities, and that the police, courts, government … society at large .. is somehow doing its (various) job(s) properly.

High prison muster figures, therefore, are thought to be akin to a notable budgetary surplus, so to speak, when it comes to courting those people and their votes.

(There is a separate rant about the frank bizarreness of endeavoring to run a surplus in the midst of a recession, despite a historically low cost of crown borrowing, and accomplished via a studious string of cap-handed cuts to essential services and vandalism of a well-earning asset portfolio … but that is, again, another immanent critique of the previous round of ‘Status Quo’, for another time)

Criminal justice policy, along with creationism in school science lessons, is one of those curious areas of the socio-political landscape wherein otherwise seemingly rational and indeed intelligent people start abandoning their critical faculties in a bid to make the loudest emotive arguments and the swiftest progress to a state possibly adjacent to that of Texas.

It is refreshing, indeed, therefore, to have made such a shift from a situation wherein Corrections was being presided over by a Minister who thought that prison-rape would be a desirable deterrent element against future offending, through to more reasonable figures capable of looking at the sector through the lense of ‘lives’ rather than ‘votes’.

Let’s see if this trend continues with the reception to some of Andrew Little’s proposed further reforms in this area

]]>What To Make Of Allegations John Bolton Is A Russian Spyhttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/08/27/what-to-make-of-allegations-john-bolton-is-a-russian-spy/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/08/27/what-to-make-of-allegations-john-bolton-is-a-russian-spy/#commentsSun, 26 Aug 2018 20:34:34 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=104541

It is not because I believe there is any worthwhile evidence establishing Bolton as an agent of Russia. But rather, for two other reasons.

First, because I am genuinely, almost *painfully* perplexed as to how somebody could *possibly* cast the *literal* Cold Warrior LARPer extraordinaire that is John Bolton as an ideological cohort of the Kremlin.

Bolton has been remarkably consistent in his (regrettably) vocally expressed views over the years. Anything which seeks to constrain American unipolar hegemony is not just “bad” but outright evil; and whether the United Nations (which he memorably suggested ought to lose a few levels from its New York headquarters), the Russian Federation (whom he accused just a few months ago of carrying out an “act of war” against the United States through alleged ‘election interference’), or the Islamic Republic of Iran – if you’ve ever presented so much as a paper-tiger road-block to the violently unilateral exercise of American hyperpower, in his view you’re a part of the problem.

Not for nothing has it been said of Bolton that he never met a war he didn’t like.

But seriously, can you imagine the conversation in Washington about all of this?

Bolton: “I WANT A WAR WITH IRAN”
Democrats: “You see? Clearly a Russian agent provocateur!”
Republicans: “…wait what?”
Democrats: “Only a RUSSIAN SPY could POSSIBLY have the vision and foresight to further RUSSIAN POWER by having America attack the key Russian ally in the Middle East”

Now to be fair, there is a rather good argument to be made (hence why I have, previously, made it) that the ongoing and unbridled flexing of America’s international bully-streak will weaken the US’s geopolitical position over time. And, as we are already seeing in direct relation to Iran, will considerably aid and avail the Iranian return to a stable and ordinary position within the global community of nations.

So I guess you could say that the more America is encouraged to act like the bull in the proverbial china-shop – dashing and crashing against any red rag which might perceivably bear a yellow hammer-and-sickle ensign upon it – the more that it buries itself in the porcelain … and the more that its potential rivals for influence, by which I of course mean competing models for the distribution of international power rather than just simply states, will in relative terms ascend.

Yet the notion that Bolton is deliberately weakening the United States of America in order to intentionally advance, say, Russia on a global scale or Iran on both a global and regional stage … does not stack up. For the very simple reason that Bolton is not doing or saying anything now that he has not been vomiting forth for the previous several decades.

In other words, it may be *idiotic*, but he genuinely believes it.

But the second reason I am feeling confused about this most recent bizarity, is because I am genuinely unsure as to whom I “want” to “win”. On the one hand, the ongoing ‘Reds Under The Bed’ style silliness in American politics should not be supported nor encouraged; for reasons that ought be patently obvious, but which also include the fact that the longer the US Democratic Party indulges in this nonsense, the lesser the chance it actually stops, takes a step back, and looks at itself and realizes just why it lost in 2016.

Yet on the other … it is truly easy, and more to the point, *justified* to DESPISE Bolton and HIS antics on both the domestic and the international stages for just about as long as he has been an identifiable figure upon either.

If he were to find himself the solitary scalp to land detached – from head, from White House position, from whatever – as a result of the ongoing paranoia about Russian “infiltration” in American politics, I’d have to say that I’d be hard pressed to oppose this consequence from occurring.

The World – and, for that matter, America – would be inarguably better off as a result of his removal.

In any case, it is utterly peculiar that Bolton has now found himself the target of these sorts of lurid accusations.

Still, there may yet be another positive to the situation as a consequence of this later example of rather drastic over-reach.

During the course of the McCarthy ‘campaign’ against “Soviet” subversion in American politics more than half a century ago, that interminable antagonist – McCarthy, I mean, not the Soviets – saw his fortunes and his witch-hunt finally unravel when he found himself effectively accusing the United States Army of being (or, at the very least, consciously harbouring) a pro-Soviet organization.

Now I do not, for a moment, seek to compare Bolton to an actual body of fighting men. Even though his frequent enthusiasms for “strikes”, “invasions”, and other such employments of said forces would surely put even the most jingoistic General Ripper to shame.

But just as it was patently absurd for the US Army to be tarred with the accusations of pro-Communist sympathies, given it had just fought a particularly bloody war against same in Korea at the time; it is also incipiently ridiculous for Bolton to be slandered with the “Russian stooge” label.

Wait, I think I shall have to amend that:

It is also outrageously slanderous for Russia to be defamed with the allegation that they might be working with Bolton.

There. Much better.

Anyway – here’s hoping this is the ‘high water mark’ on the ongoing efforts at employing the de-witchifying ‘ducking stool’ in American politics.

Reflections On The Geopolitical Significance of India From The Perspective Of A Small Democracy On The Occasion Of Bharat Mata’s 70th Re-Birth Day

[Author’s Note: this piece originally appeared in Samrajya Magazine for its 70th Anniversary Indian Independence issue, one year ago today. Despite the slight geopolitical shifts which have transpired since then (including the ‘resolution’ – for now – of the Doklam Crisis, as well as the CPTPP turning into something of a fait accompli), its overall theme and contents remain strikingly relevant for New Zealand here in 2018.

It is therefore presented to the reader, unaltered from its original form, on Indian Independence Day 2018]

As I sit here and write this on a darkening evening of the 14th of August 2017, the news in my country is pretty grim. It has just emerged that the Chinese have somehow managed to wrangle a somewhat unprecedented set of resource ownership and extraction rights for a site abutting one of our most significant places. How has this happened? Probably the usual combination of big money and big pressure upon our local regulatory bodies – an unwholesome combination which basically amounts to ‘soft power neo-imperialism’. And which is part of a sad pattern and trajectory towards New Zealanders becoming yet another economically colonized folk in our own country.

This might sound somewhat alarmist, but we have already seen in recent days a situation wherein the Chinese Government has pressured us to take shoddy steel exports – and put serious protectionist screws upon us as a realized threat when we attempted to call ‘time’ on this unequal relationship. And which joins a series of other related events (such as China leaning heavily upon us to support their position in the Spratleys; or the carrot to this stick of constructing billions worth of infrastructure here in one of our more marginalized & impoverished regions) which casts substantial doubt over just how long we will be able to maintain the notion of remaining geopolitically – let alone economically – sovereign.

Now this all might seem rather curious to be citing in what it supposed to be an article in honour of Bharat Mata on Her 70th (Independent) Birthday.

But consider the following: the way in which those political entities which preceded the British Raj [and here I chiefly mean the British East India Company] carried out their extension of suzerainty across the Subcontinent was arguably a close mirror – at least in its earliest phases – for what we are witnessing here in my homeland. At first, they came to trade and set up factories at particular locations where this would be advantageous to them. Then, they escalated this to political entanglements with the local lords and fiefdoms. Before subsequently starting to take on the actual functions of local government themselves. From whence, it was a rather short hop, skip and jump to actually becoming the dominant power in those lands and eventually simply ruling them outright from a foreign capital located far away across the oceans.

Now to be fair, despite their daily-mounting power and influence here we are quite probably some ways away yet from the People’s Republic of China managing to act as the local (and brutal) tax-agents for our capital down in Wellington, in a manner directly analogous to the way that British East India Company satraps did for the Mughal Emperors.

Yet the worrying parallels remain.

I therefore seek to compare these twin situations in the hope that our own similarly shaped equivalent narrative here in New Zealand plays out with a much happier and more immediate ‘ending’ of the restoration of self-rule – Swaraj – in both a political and economic sense.

And, to put it bluntly, to draw both lessons and inspiration from the Indian experience of and response to economic colonization so that we do not find ourselves condemned to suffer the same reprehensible fate for so long.

For what can be more appropriate, as the denizen of a far-flung foreign land upon the Eve of Indian Independence’s Anniversary, than to reflect upon the noble Swaraj Struggle and ask how to honour it by drawing from its example for my own nation.

To be sure, the Chinese usurpation of our economic sovereignty is not the only issue which New Zealand is presently grappling with. Nor is it necessarily the overweening point of contemporary comparison betwixt India and Aotearoa.

But in amidst a constellation of coterminous threats to our self-determination – including pernicious ‘trade deals’ like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would literally give certain trans-national mega-corporations the ability to overwrite our laws and force extortionate direct payments to be made to them by our government under the guise of Investor-State Dispute Settlement protocols (this should once again sound familiar to anyone familiar with the history of British imperialism east of Suez) – there is another reason that I have focused in upon the Chinese dimension of New Zealand’s present worrying situation.

And that is the geopolitics of the whole matter.

As cannot have escaped the attention of anyone with an eye on India [despite the interesting efforts of the media in my country, whether state-owned or foreign-controlled, to avoid reporting on it], there is presently a rather active geopolitical fault-line between India and China which may yet boil over into actual, armed conflict on a potentially frightening scale on a number of axes.

The present ‘flashpoint’ is the crisis over Doklam in Bhutan – which the Chinese are seeking to amorphously annex in a manner presumably comparable to their longstanding previous habit of mercilessly exploiting any alleged ‘ambiguities’ in their own border-demarcations for territorial gain.

The Bhutanese requested Indian assistance in repelling the Chinese neo-colonialist cyst from their lands; and India, ever a noble friend to those who depend upon Her, sent troops to help defend the Bhutanese border. The Chinese response was swift – mobilizing thousands of troops into neighbouring Tibet, having their state-run media deploy a dizzying barrage of a-historical “commentary” enjoining India to “remember 1962” [and yet, mysteriously, completely forget all of India’s strong series of subsequent military successes such as those in 1965 and the War of Bangladeshi Liberation – or, for that matter, the Indian victories in the border-clashes with China which took place in 1967], and finally grimly advising just this week that “the count-down to war has begun”.

Throughout this all, India has remained vigilant, reasonable, and rationally well-prepared to repel the Sinic acts of aggression. India has not backed down nor abandoned an ally despite all manner of irresponsible attempted cajoling and saber-rattling from those who would presumably think of themselves as the latter-day ‘Mao Dynasty’.

And this, in concert with India’s actions along a number of other potential ‘flashpoints’ with China or Chinese-backed puppet-states such as perfidious Pakistan, represent in the very real sense India’s emerging role as the natural counter to attempts at Chinese ensorcellement of a global hegemony which – whilst it might think itself less prone to overt bouts of braggadocio than its American predecessors – may very well turn out to be just as brutal and exploitative as those imperial projects which have come before, if not more so … a situation which history teaches us is more especially deleterious when a particular Great Power’s ambitions are unchecked and unchallenged by a similarly potent restraining counter-force.

This, then, is why I as a New Zealander look with so much hope towards India for the geopolitical period yet to come. Because just as the looming shark-fin which can be seen wending its way across the waters of the Pacific towards us is hailing from China – so too is the ‘net’ which might serve to corral it being provided on the world stage by India.

A ‘Multipolar World’, as advocated for by international relations theorists such as Aleksandr Dugin, remains the ideal situation for small states such as ours who have little love for the notions of being tangled up amidst foreign-ruled feudal arrangements. And India’s own previous record of being such a strong champion of the Non-Aligned Movement helps to elucidate Her genuine commitment to supporting and augmenting the independence of us less-partisan geopolitical minnows.

Indeed, the instance from the 1983 Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Delhi wherein the personal esteem with which Indira Gandhi was held in was used to quash an otherwise intractable diplomatic row between the Palestinians and the Jordanians shows most clearly the ways in which endeavours at co-ordinating against hegemony have historically benefitted from Indian co-ordination.

Yet the trouble with the goal of an international relations system wherein small states are not unfairly dominated by the larger and more well-armed ones is that the ‘multipolarity’ we seek is both a rare and unstable commodity. There is always some ascending tyrant out there who is poised to disrupt any form of fragile equilibrium which might have eventuated, and advance their own Great Power interest – unilaterally or hegemonically so – without regard for the opinions nor the independence and interdependence of the smaller polities.

Hence the importance of either grand coalitions of those aforementioned more miniscule figures – or, more plausibly, the vitality of another vibrant power placing themselves in a position to challenge the would-be unipolar world-emperor. And, in amidst the bifurcation of the world between them, a potentially broad space is created within which us smaller peoples are better able to thrive. At least as compared to how we might be under a particular unsanitary thumb.

The situation of the Cold War obviously presented just such an instance of active ‘Bipolarity’, with India herself both playing a lead role in co-ordinating just such a ‘grand coalition’ of less powerful states caught up in the space between ‘Soviet’ and ‘Western’ spheres – but also able to draw upon the tacit and tangible assistance of the former in situations such as the attempted American nuclear aggression against India during the Bangladeshi War of Liberation.

It therefore seems innately plausible that with the Chinese seemingly stepping into the role of ‘rising would-be world-king’, that India is uniquely placed both geographically and geopolitically to make a meaningful difference in attempting to restrain them. And thus allow we less powerful polities room to breath a bit more freely.

And while Indian readers will be intimately familiar with the encroaching seepage of Chinese influence into areas which have historically been under Indian influence – areas such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar, and even Sri Lanka – it is understandable that the escalating predicament of New Zealand in amidst our own neighbourhood will be less well known.

As we head into the third decade of the new millennium, the situation of the Pacific region appears almost something akin to the ‘Great Game’ or the ‘Scramble for Africa’ of the late 1800s. There are multiple theoretically sovereign nations [of which New Zealand is one] who have recently found themselves nervously and uneasily regarding the circling wolves of the Great Powers (and their lackeys). We have seen this most clearly with the diplomatic efforts of China to prise an array of states away from their traditional good neighbours with promises of infrastructure provision and the direct setting up of bases and Chinese-manned (and protected) resource extraction efforts [what the British East India Company would have termed ‘factories’].

New Zealand, put simply, does not have the resources to compete with this. We are neither able to limit Chinese influence in our own ‘back yard’ and traditional ‘sphere of influence’ – nor are we even in a position to sensibly manage Chinese influence in our own country. As applies Fiji – one of the chief countries that China has its eye on in our region – this has rather direct significance for India, given the potentially parlous position of the Indian population there who have previously been prejudicially targeted by native Fijians. And in terms of broader significance, we have already recently had to experience the singular disquiet of watching a larger power ‘bribe’ various of our formerly close-friend Pacific neighbours into supporting their position against ours in international forums like the IWC.

The only way in which we can attempt to fight back against the slow and creeping extension of regional hegemony by the ‘rising power’ of China [or, for that matter, the resurrection of somewhat oppressive US dominance in the area following their previous ‘Pacific Pivot’], is through working together with another Great Power who also shares our disquiet about the antics of these inveterate antagonists.

It might be queried whether relying upon one Great Power to protect against the predations of others of similar (or even greater) stature is the wisest course. Yet it seems quite plain that India’s values as demonstrated on the world stage are not ‘imperialist’; and, equally significantly, that India’s values at home as arguably the most successful of the 20th century’s realized nationalist political projects are also very much in accord with what we want to see promoted here in our neck of the woods.

Where the Chinese seem only interested in promulgating economic development that benefits China, and are fairly actively engaged in supporting anti-democratic regimes and neo-colonial efforts across the globe; and the United States talks a big game about “democracy” yet also frequently only seems interested in bulldozing governments it doesn’t like via sanctions or invasions; India combines both an enthusiasm for popularly legitimate regimes and a respect for the boundaries of sovereignty.

For India alone of these three, “Democratic Self-Rule” means both “Democracy” and “Self-Rule” are prioritized.

I therefore look upon India’s role in these impending geopolitical circumstances as being less akin to that of one of the globe-spanning colossi of ages past such as Britain and France or the USA and USSR, and perhaps more directly comparable to the significance of Mahadev in the Samudra Manthana episode from Hindu myth. Or, for that matter, that of Mother Durga [Whom Bharat Mata is often regarded as an Aspect of], in Her vital contribution to the stability, prosperity and order of the universe as Mahishasura-Mardini – the Slayer of the Buffalo-Demon.

In both legends, we see powers coming together in pursuit of an important and overarching goal. This resembles the co-operation of states which I earlier mentioned as integral to a functioning and mutually successful multipolarity. However, again in both cases, the challenges which must be overcome prove themselves too powerful for even groups of Gods working together.

The Churning of the Sea of Milk produces the Halahala poison – and only through the heroic intervention of Mahadev is its noxious lethality prevented from spreading further and subduing all those it comes across. This is an exceedingly important action on the part of Lord Shiva, albeit one which is not undertaken without significant personal cost [hence His marking and epithet as Neelakantha – ‘The Blue Throated’].

And in the case of the struggle against Mahishasur – as well as the closely comparable myth of the slaying of Durgasur – the sheer power and precise characteristics of this demon were such that no Divinity other than Durga would likely have been able to best him. To the general relief and acclaim of the rest of creation.

The application of these narratives to the present geopolitical situation ought be plainly apparent. And not least due to the fight against Durgamasur taking place both in and over Himalayan territories falsely claimed by an aggressor. Still, I do not mean to go so far as to directly suggest that the extant Chinese leadership are under Demonic sway – nor, for that matter, that Chinese influence is literally toxic and life-destroying. But in each of the above instances, great calamity for a large swathe of the world at the hands of expansionist or otherwise ambitious forces was only prevented via the serious and strenuous exertions of a mighty figure.

Although it is also worth noting that in both the Halahala and Mahishasura episodes, that ready assistance was provided to both Mahadev and Mata JI from others. In the case of the former, Lady Parvati’s efforts to keep the poison from leaving Lord Shiva’s throat; and as applies the latter, the bestowing of various boons of weaponry from the Pantheon at large to Their empowered Champion.

Again, there is a potent metaphor here. Namely, that if we wish to benefit from the protection provided to us by Indian power and Indian sacrifice, then we must also seek opportunity to make our own active contributions to these efforts, and rally – whether alongside or behind.

The Chinese have already been markedly successful at spreading the tendrils of both soft-power influence and real-politik hard economic ensnarement out there to an array of countries.

And while I am not directly aware of any comparable Indian efforts to the Chinese ‘Confucius Institutes’ which have sprung up in attachment to universities throughout the globe with the goal of promulgating Chinese culture and perspectives … this does not necessarily mean that India is ‘starting from behind’ in this area. After all, India already has some several thousand years’ experience as the hub for the diffusion of an ancient and noble culture that had reached all the way from Bali in the east to the Mediterranean and Europe in the west long before the last (official) Imperial Dynasty of China had swept in off the Steppes; whilst the Arthashastra stands as one of the world’s oldest treatises upon the successful advancement of politics, influence, and diplomacy.

With all of that in mind, I am therefore hopeful that articles such as these and publications like Samrajya Magazine are able to make a meaningful contribution to advancing the position of India on the world stage. Whether by positively influencing perceptions, correcting misapprehensions, or more directly shaping the future – there are many ways for those of us capable of wielding the pen in our hand and the tongue in our head to assist with this most important mission. And in the process thereof, hopefully not only help in some small way with fueling India’s rise, but also aiding in bringing closer together those who will benefit from Her ongoing (re-)ascent along with it.

On that note, it occurs that the ray of light I see peering over the horizon in the early hours of this Independence Morning … is possibly not just the newly re-emergent Sun telling me I should have been asleep hours ago rather than up all night frantically attempting to finish this article.

Instead, it may very well be that rarest of commodities in matters of geopolitical analysis:

Hope.

Hope for both a better future, and for a resolution of the present situation worth celebrating.

So from the perspective of this New Zealander upon the occasion of India’s 70th anniversary of Independence, then, may I sincerely express my most fervent desire that these rays from the Adityas continue to shine down upon Her forever more.

Gosh, that’s a funny way to say “to protect the territorial integrity of Poland”.

Now, Interwar Poland was not exactly a bastion of freedom of speech. In fact, the Sanation regime appeared to almost make a virtue out of the targeted repression of freedom of speech and of the press for groups – whether opposition, ethnic, or political minority – which it disagreed with.

But what I find interesting about this situation is the particular effect which the above had on the fledgling Polish state’s German minority.

Namely, the ways in which it a) made it more difficult for ordinary Polish-Germans to protest against maltreatment and marginalization in the context of the Polish state; while b), and partially as a result of this, pushing many Germans in Poland to identify more strongly with the politics of a certain party which had just swept to success earlier in the decade in Poland’s westward neighbour, if you get my drift.

That is to say, the situation of repression lead to an array of people not otherwise necessarily favourably disposed toward engagement with ‘extreme’ politics … and in this particular case, literal Naziism … to do so; as this was perceived as one of the only remaining “strong” forces capable of pushing back against said perceived repression. Eventually, this culminated in an array of what you might call ‘anti-state’ activities, of a rather militant nature … followed by the invasion of Poland near the end of the decade, which triggered the British/Commonwealth/French declarations of War against Germany.

Now, I am not seeking to suggest that the above is a template for what may occur here in New Zealand if we see an escalation in the frequency and ‘forcefulness’ with which some elements endeavour to constrain (justifiably or otherwise) ‘freedom of speech’. I hardly need to start listing the significant differences between Poland in the 1930s and New Zealand today which help to support the statement “It Can’t Happen Here” as applied to our context.

Yet it seems a curious thing. Over the last two weeks .. and before that, for much of the last two to three years, we have heard all manner of strident rhetoric about if we *don’t* assent to constraining ‘freedom of speech’ (whether through calls to “punch a Nazi”, with “Nazi”, of course, being sufficiently vaguely defined as to be almost as meaningless a term in ‘real-life’ pugilistic-psephological discourse as it is on the internet), or the more recent endeavours to bar writing critical of the Neoliberal-Neoconservative (geo-)political consensus which pervades the Anglosphere (seriously – I was stunned to hear from an associate visiting the UK that he could not access my work in that country because their government had blocked it), or much of the rest of it …) ..

… then “that’s how you get Nazis” – in the sense that presumably all that’s standing between your average, ordinary voter and full-on Hugo Boss uniforms alongside really bad misunderstandings of Indo-European anthropology … is that they apparently haven’t read a bit of ‘fake news’ on the internet yet.

But as the above-referenced episode from Polish history may show, there is a distinctly non-zero chance that in the manner common to so many prophecies found in the corpus of Greek Myth – that efforts to *prevent* a particular outcome can very well, and *very directly* foster its “(eventual) occurrence.

Or, in other words: what if these “anti-Nazi” measures are, in point of fact, at least occasionally “how you get Nazis”?

You know, it is a curious thing. When Pakistan made moves about potentially acquiring Russian-made S-400 anti-missile/anti-air system … there was, largely, silence. Yet when India goes to actualize acquisition of S-400 systems as part of a deal with Russia that was negotiated in 2016 – United States moves to impose sanctions on India.

There are two ways to view this. The first is the straight-forward defence-industry perspective. The S-400 is a pretty good system. Indeed, I would contend that it appears to be a *better* system than the US-made Patriot ABM/SAM system. Not least because I am yet to encounter any reports of an S-400 employment demolishing city-blocks in urban areas it is supposed to be defending – as reportedly happened both during Israel’s usage of same during the first Gulf War against Iraqi SCUDs, and more recently in Saudi Arabia during Houthi missile attacks.

Just as we saw with the alleged pressure put on NATO members to acquire wildly expensive US-made F-35 hangar-queens instead of more sensible or proven aircraft … the American defence industry appears to increasingly survive not on providing ‘cutting edge’ hardware to clients (partially, to be fair, due to software issues…) – but rather, through having the “strong arm” of US geopolitical pressure endeavour to apply some form of ‘cutting edge’ to the jugular veins of (non-military) trade-flows between potential customers and the American market.

However, while it would be tempting to simply consider this another bout of American “please-don’t-buy-their-gunboats” “diplomacy”, to do so would be to decontextualize this instance from its place in the broader (and increasingly troubled) Indian relationship with the United States.

In the last few months, we have seen repeated “warnings” from America to India that the US will not tolerate ongoing Indian strengthening of diplomatic and other ties with Iran.

Indeed, the most recent round of these effectively issued India with a straight-up ultimatum to almost immediately abandon its importation of five hundred thousand barrels per day of Iranian oil (this represents Iran’s largest petroleum export market)

Now, while it is again possible to view the above as yet another manifestation of American domestic-producer protection (i.e. the Trump Administration is fairly keen to continue to support expansions in US oil production – something largely made possible through the effects American efforts against both Iran and Venezuela, as well as Russia, have had on price and supply in the global energy market) , this misses the geopolitical realities at play here – as well as, come to think of it, the historic precedence for same.

By pursuing positive relations with Iran, maintaining its strong relations with Russia, and also continuing to build upon the last decade or so’s perhaps striking relationship-building with America … all at the same time … India is demonstrating a sound application of the principle of “Multipolarity” in practice.

And as it happens, this is not a new ‘stance’ nor situation for India, either – once upon a time, She was the leading state of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Yet however much sense it might make for India (and, indeed, the world at large) to embrace Multipolarity in geopolitical affairs, the Americans have never been particularly keen on the idea. Not since they started to realize they were a true global (super)power, at any rate.

As we will recall from the Cold War – the American position tended to be that you either ‘picked’ them or the Soviets; with endeavours at ‘doing business’ with both ‘sides’ strongly discouraged. A situation which, I would argue, actually *cost* them a considerable number of potential amicable diplomatic relationships for basically no reason other than pride and pedantry.

And while this would be bad and limiting enough for the ‘client states’ in question, what has invariably made it worse is the American insistence upon ‘paternalism’ in these relationships.

That is to say, point-blank refusing to countenance their dealings with other sovereign states in the course of such arrangements as anything like a ‘conversation’ of even notional equals, or actual ‘partners’ who each bring to the table valid points of view.

Instead, as we are seeing with the recent threats against India – a far more ‘unilateral’ approach is taken, perhaps as befits an ‘Imperial Center’ who’ve come to view themselves as some horrendous combination of “Hyperpower” and “Chakravartin”.

A unipolar hegemon who, it would appear, has all but forgotten what it is to have “friends” on the international stage, in avowed preference of viewing its associates as something altogether more akin to “satrapies”.

And to be fair here – both to the US in general, as well as to the Trump Administration in particular – this is not entirely a new phenomenon. If one were to look not at all that far back in the annals of history, something like the unjust demands made of Japan by America at the Plaza Accords in 1985 stands out as an emblematic example. Or, for that matter, the US’s straight-up diktat-orial refusal to compromise with New Zealand over the issue of their nuclear ships in our waters which was occurring roughly contemporaneously.

Going back further, and further-afield, we can find any number of Imperial powers carrying out similar conduct with regard to smaller or otherwise less ‘potent’ polities, and for avowedly similar reason.

Although the funny thing about that is – this kind of arrogant and aggressive conduct not infrequently occurs toward the *end* of a given Power’s tenure as ‘giant in the playground’.

How long, for instance, did it take Athens to go from purporting to uphold (Greek) Freedom against a tyrannous “evil empire” … through to the much-changed rhetoric of the Melian Dialogue (wherein the Athenians abandoned the high-minded pretenses the Delian League was nominally founded under, and proceeded to offer terms to the previously neutral state of Melos which literally amounted to “Join (and pay exorbitant tribute) Or Die” ) … and from thence to escalating rebellion among its previous ‘allies’ in response to increasingly brutal Athenian conduct, followed not long after by Spartan triumph and Athenian geopolitical and political collapse.

With all of that in mind, the Americans would perhaps be advised to ponder whether this ongoing campaign of attempted-intimidation against a rising Great Power in pursuit of very much *temporary* gains against a regional adversary or for their less-competitive domestic industries … is actually likely to be “worth it” in the longer run.

We have all heard the aphorism “Don’t Poke The Bear”, in deference to Russia.

Perhaps, as applies the American interaction with India, the US would be wise to recall another maxim – “Don’t Tread On” the Cobra.

A bit of an odd thought I had earlier this morning about this Lauren Southern free-speech-or-na controversy.

Now, the reason people are objecting to various efforts to have the ban lifted on Southern & Molyneux utilizing Auckland Council venues for their tour .. is at least partially because of what these figures have said, or are likely to say. And in the case of Southern, that almost certainly entails a repetitive series of rhetorical attacks on “Islam”. [I mean seriously, her last book is entitled “Barbarians: How Baby Boomers, Immigrants, and Islam Screwed My Generation”]

I mention this point in particular, because while s61 of the Human Rights Act makes it unlawful to “excite hostility against or bring into contempt” racial/ethnic groups in a variety of contexts … I am unaware of any parallel and corresponding prohibition on doing likewise against religious groups or adherents on a similar basis.

Except, of course, for s123 of the Crimes Act – which covers “Blasphemous Libel”. Although given the complicated and convoluted elements around *that* particular offence [including the requirement for Attorney-General approval for any potential prosecution, as well as the fact that it’s been almost a hundred years since that offence was last prosecuted here, and the additional legal question as to whether it applies to anything other than Anglicanism] … it may actually be even *less* useful in this regard than the notoriously over-extended Human Rights Commission.

Now, one potential solution here would be to bring in something analogous to s295A of the Indian Penal Code – which effectively acts as a blanket prohibition on attempts to “outrage religious feelings” or “insult” a religion or its followers.

However, I suspect that this would be more than a bridge too far for many of the people presently protesting the protest relating to Southern & Molyneux.

And, indeed, seem to directly recall a not insignificant number or spectrum of those against the block on Southern & Molyneux using a Council venue being at least somewhat in favour of the repeal of the aforementioned s123 of our Crimes Act – often on grounds of freedom of speech.

Now to be clear about this – I am *conspicuously not taking a position in favour of allowing Southern & Molyneux* into said Council-owned venue with this post.

Instead, I am simply putting forward two points: first, that if I take at face value the rhetorical stances of a reasonable number of the people *against* Southern & Molyneux being able to speak at the Bruce Mason Centre … then the obvious ‘next step’ becomes something akin to the aforementioned criminal offence under Indian law.

And second, that I rather suspect if push were actually to come to shove, a not-insignificant number of the aforementioned group would quite probably balk at the idea of actually putting up a barrier (particularly one which might actually have some ‘legislative teeth’) to being able to attack – or, if you prefer, “speak out against” – (a) religion(s).

Perhaps I am wrong about this. Maybe I’ve propounded a false assumption, and most if not all of the people presently being vocal about how causing offence and inciting disharmony in the community *on a racialine basis* ought not come within the ambit of ‘protected’ speech … also share similar concerns when it comes to religion and religious adherents.

Particularly when it’s in the direction of those of us who’re religious minorities here in this country.

But for a number of reasons, I do not think that I am.

Which, of course, raises an interesting follow-up: as if one is not to be allowed to rhetorically attack other people or ethnic/racial groupings on the basis of their ethnic/racial origins … but *is* to be allowed to rhetorically attack the culturo-religious elements of their personhood regardless:

We have effectively set up a situation wherein no matter the colour of skin or where you come from, you are free to be a relatively liberal white person on the inside without fear of attack or disparagement.

And little-to-nothing else.

Funny thing, there – I’m pretty sure that’s an integral part of Lauren Southern’s desired vision for Western society.

The US having issues around ‘inconvenient truths’ on human rights being brought up at the UN is not exactly a new phenomenon. This cartoon from the height of the Cold War depicts then-US President John F. Kennedy facing off against then-Premier/First Secretary of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev.

It depicts a pretty common sort of exchange in those days – wherein the United States would issue some strident declamation of human rights abuses supposedly occurring within the Soviet Union … and the Soviets would respond along the lines of “…and you are lynching black people”.

In the early part of the 1960s, this was very much a factual statement. And it does disrupt somewhat both the then-current and more recent contemporary ‘idyllic’ self-image Americans have historically harboured of their own position as an upholder and champion of international human rights.

Although it is not exactly a new thing. After all, almost two hundred years beforehand, no less a personage than Dr. Samuel Johnson had proclaimed of the sentiments underpinning the American Revolution – “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”

Another somewhat regular skirmish between the Superpowers is illustrated (literally, in this case, I suppose) via the other two ‘cards’ in Khrushchev’s hand. Namely, the habitual Soviet response to allegations of the USSR propping up certain autocratic or otherwise ‘nasty’ regimes with poor human rights records … through pointing out the American practice of doing exactly this for a range of international pariahs, where and as geopolitically convenient.

Indeed, while somewhat indicative of the sorts of regimes being countenanced as endorsable by the Americans at that point (and it is, perhaps, an open question as to whether things have gotten better or worse in more recent years with the ascent of Saudi Arabia et co into that position); if anything, a ‘mere’ two cards to cover this is a critical under-representation.

I mean, if we want to talk of eschewing sanction upon outright *monstrous* governments at the UN – it is probably rather important to note that the Americans *outright supported* the Khmer Rouge at this forum *for years*. As in, due in large part to geopolitical considerations (in particular a spiteful and needlessly vindictive desire for vengeance against Vietnam for *daring* to not lose their eponymous war of liberation against the Americans), the US actively protected the Khmer Rouge’s international recognition and “legitimacy” at the UN – even continuing to do so for nearly a decade [from 1982-1991] following the Khmer Rouge’s ouster from Cambodia and transition into the key/dominant part of a Cambodian ‘government in exile’.

This is without getting into the US’s shameful record both at the UN itself and in support of its allies (hilariously enough, at that point low-key including China) through the same forum in the context of the Bangladeshi Liberation War in 1971, which I’ve written about capaciously elsewhere. (Cliffnotes version: the Americans attempted to shield Pakistan from first criticism/scrutiny … and then from an Indian intervention carried out to stop a genocide that killed millions of people, through a multifaceted array of UNGA and UNSC efforts; with US actions in that last arena arguably arcing toward the seeking of sanction for American-led military intervention *against India* (who let’s remember – are the unquestionable Good Guys in this situation), before the Pakistani military collapse rendered further American assistance efforts pointless)

Or any of the dozens of other examples, in an ongoing pattern arcing right up through to the present day (and yes, including Israel), which show that this sort of ‘deplorable’ (indeed – outright hypocritical) conduct has been very much the ‘rule’ rather than the ‘exception’ in terms of American (mis/ab)use of the UN when it comes to rights-discourse.

With all of that in mind, we should perhaps be rather unsurprised about the apparent American stance of treating its ongoing participation in this international forum as something of a game – or at best, a pantomime performance in which certain ‘motions’ (of condemnation or reflexive countering, and suchlike) are gone through in order to deflect and deter from ‘deeper’ motivations being criticized or exposed.

After all, it has quite some experience at it.

Dr Johnson again: “Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.”

__________________

As a contemporary addendum on this issue:

If the Americans were genuinely concerned about being seen to lend legitimacy to a human-rights body that was hypocritical in its ambit, then I would have expected them to raise this furore a few years back in 2016, when Saudi Arabia secured its ongoing position thereupon. Or its [Saudi’s] success the previous year in attaining the chairmanship of the UNHRC panel which does the selection and appointing of independent experts to investigate rights abuses etc. Or perhaps a year later, when it somehow wound up chairing a related UN Commission on the Status of Women. Or its utilizing of its position on the UNHRC to block efforts to investigate the commission of war-crimes committed by a “certain country”‘s forces in Yemen.

But, of course, this didn’t happen. And as a point of interest, Nikki Haley’s statement on the reasoning for the US withdrawal from the UNHRC, despite singling out a number of countries by name which were alleged to be worse than Israel as ‘proof’ that the whole thing was hopelessly biased …. somehow neglected to mention *at all* this ongoing series of near-farcical blunders as applies the noted American geopolitical ally (both on and off the Council), Saudi Arabia. Indeed, nowhere in the statement is Saudi Arabia even mentioned – presumably because the best tactic when it comes to ‘defending the indefensible’ is to attempt to distract the attention with something else entirely.

Gosh, it is almost like the US is motivated less by altruistic concern for the state of human rights in international affairs, and more by a combination of political point-scoring and endeavours to shield its friends from scrutiny or significant criticism.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/06/25/us-withdrawal-from-un-human-rights-council-is-cold-war-caricature/feed/1Why I’m Not That Concerned About ACT Twerking Its Way To 2020 Victoryhttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/06/20/why-im-not-that-concerned-about-act-twerking-its-way-to-2020-victory/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/06/20/why-im-not-that-concerned-about-act-twerking-its-way-to-2020-victory/#commentsTue, 19 Jun 2018 21:44:50 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=101822

It has been said that history occurs twice – the first time, as tragedy … but the second time as farce.

Although as applies ACT, with the exception of what they’ve done to the Nation, you can probably ditch the first bit.

With that in mind, it’s probably useful at this point to take a bit of a closer look at the prediction being advanced in certain quarters that David Seymour’s efforts on a certain reality tv show of late might somehow singlehandedly revive the ACT Party. As an actual “party”, I mean, rather than an entity whose Parliamentary Caucus can currently be counted using the single finger of one hand.

It may be a matter for the viewer as to precisely *which* finger this is, or whether it’s in the direction of the Caucus in question or the general public.

But in some ways, you’ve got to give it to Seymour. Despite evidently possessing two right feet, and generally all the grace of Roger Douglas in a state-owned china shop, he’s managed to hang in there – both in Parliament and, thus far, on Dancing With The Stars – through every reckoning with the tallied votes of the electorate-at-large.

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that Seymour is therefore twerking proof that Democracy Does Not Work, anywhere outside of a coat-tail slithering southward from Epsom. Although it is interesting to observe that his psephological efforts both on and off television have made capacious use of the frivolous to attempt to reach a younger audience in a desperate bid to hoover up potential party votes … or txt-in votes on one’s cellphone … to keep the whole thing going another round.

During the 2014 General Election, for instance, he effectively turned himself into a meme with the whole “Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” thing. It was .. odd, it was awkward, and it provoked no end of parody. But in the end, it was memorable; it was (apparently) relatable; and to quote the old military adage – “if it’s stupid, but it works, then it’s not stupid”. It certainly drew a rather stark line under the previous ACT-flavouring of John Banks Lite.

In 2017, he effectively abandoned the previous Parliamentary Term’s attempts at being a perhaps-unexpected liberal-amenable Mister Sensible on social-conscience issues like euthanasia and abortion law reform … to instead push a re-run of ACT’s “greatest hits” [there’s an ‘s’ missing from that phrase, you may have noticed] around “fiscal responsibility” etc, along with headline-grabbing profanity in an official context directed at a fellow Parliamentarian. I was rather disappointed by that, and feel he made the wrong decision – as the potential vote for “practical applications of principled libertarianism”, so to speak (which would also include his advocacy around compensation for wrongfully convicted figures, and other such things) , would *surely* be larger in scope than that for yet another round of effectively ineffectual-posturing warmed over 1990s rhetoric.

But in any case, it’s all rather academic – as this “super serious” (while being more than a touch supercilious) approach actually saw ACT’s vote *decrease* in both percentage and absolute terms.

I suppose this makes Seymour’s Stars run rather more obviously understandable. People have said that a politician going onto a show such as this risks losing any gravitas in the eyes of the general public, and thus comprehensively ruining further shots at re-election. These people have, of course, not accounted for Tim Shadbolt (whose run on the show, in a similar manner to Seymour, seemed to consist of a long-running series of his outlasting better dancers thanks to the oft-curious whims of Democracy … aided and availed, if I recall correctly, by Shadbolt announcing that persons issued with parking tickets in Invercargill could pay them by voting for him via txt in the contest).

They also possibly haven’t reckoned with the notion that when you’re preciously low in the “gravitas” stakes anyway – to the point of quite possibly being turfed out in the next electoral cycle and therefore winding up with all the lack of stature of a failed politician (no disrespect to Marama Fox in this regard) – that it may very well seem like there’s little, other than one’s electorate seat, left to lose with the only way from there being up.

Provided one is neither Rodney Hide’s partner in 2006, nor Rodney Hide in the hands of *his* partner [i.e. the National Party] in 2011 – in which case, the downward trajectory, via dropping, is also a possibility.

But I digress.

If it is, indeed, the case that Seymour is deploying a *deliberate* attempt at “ridiculing his way to victory”, so to speak, then while there *is* a certain chance that this might work (presuming he doesn’t unduly alienate the grandee burghers of the leafy boughs of Epsom, upon whom his and his party’s survival effectively depends) … there is *also* a chance – and one of escalating magnitude in direct proportion to his relative success at the former endeavour – that once again attaining a plurality of seats (for the first time in what – a decade?) leads to serious harm for the ACT Party overall.

I would have said “a mortal blow”, but at this point in the game, it almost seems like the sand in ACT’s hourglass is occasionally prone to actually flowing *sideways* (to the right, naturally) rather than running out in any sensible, predictable fashion.

How am I suggesting that success at the ballot box might actually *harm* rather than *help* ACT?

Well, it’s simple. The trouble with a ‘reductio ad absurdum’ approach is that absurdity pretty much inevitably results. David Seymour managing David Seymour is, for the most part, probably not too difficult. David Seymour managing two to five (being rather generous, and assuming that Simon Bridges doing odd things for a National leader like supporting a nurses’ strike leads to some blue votes going yellow a la 1999/2002) ACT MPs may be quite a different matter.

After all – consider just what happened to ACT in 2008.

Then, whether you wish to attribute a substantive causative role to Rodney Hide on Stars for this or not, ACT somehow attained sufficient votes for five MPs. The four List MPs were drawn from the assembled ranks of ACT’s List [I hesitate to term it a “talent pool” – as this presumably implies a body of water with a greater depth than that of the pre-Markle Windsor gene-pool .. although I suppose it’s still deep enough to drown in, either way]; and within the space of about two years had seemingly made ACT virtually unelectable through a series of escapades I would have described as “singularly bizarre” but for their ongoing recurrence.

A full accounting of these (I’m not sure that a full accounting *for* them would even be possible) is beyond the scope of this piece. Although suffice to say that over the course of the 2008-2011 Parliamentary Term, pretty much every single one of ACT’s MPs, whether part of the initial 2008 intake or brought in from the bench following the ignominious exits of same, managed to cover themselves in a substance not quite akin to “glory”.

The first signs of trouble, chronologically speaking, were the succession of coup attempts against Rodney Hide authored by pretty much half the non-Hide Caucus and back-room people besides. Because obviously – attempting to politically assassinate the one man whose political success your entire party quite literally depends on, for being insufficiently ideologically puritan for the tastes of Roger Douglas, is a seriously *smart* thing to do.

To be fair, as applies Heather Roy’s role(s) in the above, it does appear that she also was in receipt of a certain degree of fire from Rodney; with it being something of an open question I have no desire to attempt to answer as to which directions blame ought be apportioned in that particular internecine quagmire. Although Hide’s own take on events seemed to suggest that Roy was under the ‘improper influence’ of an allegedly drug-distributing aidewith whom she may or may not have been having an affair … probably didn’t help things.

Matters then got worse when we were treated to the “Day of the Jackarse” scandal, starring David Garrett and one dead baby. A frankly bizarre scenario which was rendered all the more distasteful by Garrett’s holding of his party’s law and order portfolio, and pretty harsh positions in opposition to

WIth all of this considered, National’s rather heavy-handed decision to intervene in the erstwhile free market … party in 2011, by replacing Hide with a Statler & Waldorf combo of Don Brash & John Banks, seems perhaps less inexplicable than it might otherwise have been. I still think that the otherwise comedic pairing of Brash (a .. curiously principled, if occasionally ignorant Libertarian – c.f his comments on drug-law reform later that year) and Banks (pretty much the exact opposite in terms of both principles and the possession of them) was pretty much doomed from the start in the long term; and that it speaks to an inherent contradiction festering at what used to be the heart of the ACT Party between both ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’, as well as ‘realpolitik how do we win Epsom’ vs ‘what’re we in politics to do anyway’ wings.

But again, I digress.

My core point is thus:

ACT found itself in such sufficient dire straits that it might very well have requested a custom kitchen delivery … in large measure because it “outran its supply-lines” with the perhaps somewhat unexpected growth it experienced as a result of the 2008 General Election. Maybe it genuinely thought everybody in the upper tier of its List was actually worthwhile for Parliament – and, more importantly from the perspective of the Party, capable of actually functioning together as a team (perhaps ironic for a bunch of atomized individualists).

Except as fine as all of that might have been in theory .. in reality it proved untenable.

A common complaint, to be sure, with much of what ACT has historically said and done, in a number of forums.

The nature of the personalities involved, the way in which pre-existing conflicts within ACT found themselves *growing* in stature rather than fading into the background with a larger Parliamentary Caucus, coupled with the additional pressures of being in – or at least relatively “near” – Government … well, ACT began to tear itself apart.

And odds are, it either wouldn’t have happened, or at the very least wouldn’t have been *nearly* as bad, had ACT only possessed a Caucus of a single MP. I nearly wrote “or perhaps two or three” – but then remembered what happened to United Future a few years earlier when it turned out that having a Caucus of three people provides ample opportunity for not just a three-way split in Parliament .. but the fragmentation of one’s party into at least three disparate and irreconcilable parties by the next Election.

I guess what I’m trying to say is – I’m not too terribly worried about David Seymour quite literally twerking ACT’s way to victory come 2020; as in the questionably likely event that it somehow nets him a few additional MPs, it seems stunningly plausible that ACT will once again become a “victim of their own success”. And in a manner perhaps reminiscent of the British Empire … collapse at first very gradually, and then all at once.

The “problem”, in other words, looks set to be largely self-correcting, in the fullness of time.

Now to be fair, other than economic policy, I have nothing against David Seymour personally. In point of fact, he’s actually either directly helped me out a few times, or offered to do so, and in all cases off his own bat (I respect him quite a bit for that – it’d be easy enough to just conclude somebody’s an adversary and leave the hand unextended as a result); and like I said above, there’s certain areas of what he was banging on about circa 2014-2017 that were arguably not just agreeable but *necessary* from a reasonably liberal left-wing perspective.

I also think that it takes some pretty respectable boldness to both front up as leader of a .. somewhat flagging political party year in and year out – but also, and perhaps more especially, to be willing to subject yourself to the travails and turgidities of reality television. Particularly when it seems abundantly clear to pretty much everyone that you’re not one of the better acts on show in the context. Either context, arguably, come to think of it.

So none of what I’ve written above should necessarily be taken as any form of broadside in his specific direction. Indeed, in parts arguably quite the opposite.

But in the perhaps unlikely event that Seymour manages to increase his numbers in Parliament without the usage of a mirror, it still seems pretty inevitable that the further down ACT’s Greasy Pole one gets, the greater the chance that what we might encounter thereupon is significantly more grease yet considerably less pole.

Indeed, to end with a dancing metaphor [thankfully, and despite the twerking incident, not *also* involving the pole] – Seymour may find himself in a similar position to Hide before him.

Not the dropping your partner bit, I mean (although potential for droppery by National should perhaps never be ruled out); but rather that of presiding over a Parliamentary Caucus with all the gravitas of Morris Dancing – and the rough forward momentum of a drunken conga-line, on rollerskates, with knives forming a not-infrequent mechanism of attachment to the figure in front.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/06/20/why-im-not-that-concerned-about-act-twerking-its-way-to-2020-victory/feed/3“If This Is Marxism Then I Am Not A Marxist” – What Would Karl Think Of The PRC Claiming His 200th Birthday?https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/05/13/if-this-is-marxism-then-i-am-not-a-marxist-what-would-karl-think-of-the-prc-claiming-his-200th-birthday/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/05/13/if-this-is-marxism-then-i-am-not-a-marxist-what-would-karl-think-of-the-prc-claiming-his-200th-birthday/#commentsSat, 12 May 2018 20:13:36 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=100376

I mean, even leaving aside Marx’s own thoughts about how the “Asiatic Mode of Production” didn’t really fit into his model of historical-economic-political progression … and therefore was *extra* inapplicable for dialectical materialism leading to communism therein ….

the plain fact of the matter is that the PRC *consciously and deliberately* jettisoned Marxist dogma and Marx’s own thought at a number of points in its relatively short history.

I forget the precise date, but at some point in the iirc mid-1950s, Marxism [admitedy in Soviet-esque inflection for official purposes] was pointedly replaced by “Mao-Thought” … which, some might argue, bore about as much resemblance to the Marxist theory it claimed to be derived from as Nu Metal does to Black Sabbath.

The reasons for this movement are multifaceted, and do include “political” considerations related to the escalating Sino-Soviet Split … but at their core, boil down to a combination of it being blatantly obvious just how inapplicable Marx’s own thinking was to the ongoing “progress” of the Maoist “revolution” and presumably a certain helping of Mao’s own overblown ego-ism.

Some decades later, it happened again as a part of the Deng-ist shift towards the entirely oxymoronical “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” – which, while it might very well have been Chinese, had and has precious little to do with “Socialism” .. and even *less* to do with Marx.

This all results in a modern state of affairs wherein the Chinese state somewhat breathlessly claiming in gifts of statuary etc. to be Marx’s ideological heirs … is instead operating its system as pretty much the *opposite* of what Marx would have approved of – a paradigm of pretty seriously repressive capitalism buttressed by constant outbursts of jingoism and militant imperialism that keeps inexorably arching towards #FullNeoliberalism#InOurTime.

I mean seriously. If you want to do the intellectual contortionisms required to try and say that the modern PRC is Marxist … then you’re basically left concluding that anything which intentionally presides over economic growth and development is “Marxist”.

And, to be fair, that’s kinda how *some* of the thinking behind the Great Leap Forward supposedly went. When it wasn’t a shoddy-steel dick-measuring contest with Great Britain or carrying out mass-purges of Mao’s despised natural enemy .. the sparrow.

But the trouble is that while you *can* argue that advancing economic conditions from feudalism through to capitalism [or, if we’re disregarding the whole “Asiatic Mode of Production” thing … from whatever to Capitalism], and from thence to *higher* capitalism, according to Marx’s own schema *might* make the “inevitable” revolution more plausible coz advancing internal contradictions and suchlike driving the whole thing to breaking point …

… the slight issue here is that if the authority [I hesitate to call it a “revolutionary body”] propelling the economic shifts is *also* brutally repressing any actual attempt to turn the popular harm and discontent of these economic “advancements” into an actual political movement to overturn them and seize the means of production etc. (which are handily now often in a number of wealthy groups and individuals’ hands rather than being even “nationalized” much less “socialized” over there), then it is pretty difficult ot meaningfully claim that what you’re doing is somehow “Marxist” rather than “Get-Rich-Quick-Ist” – or simply “Capitalism with Marxist MSG-ing” or something.

This is particularly the case given a) the huge over-emphasis upon Cults of Personality (and one in particular) that have characterized the Chinese political experience for a pretty big swathe of the past century; b) the aforementioned uber-strong emphasis upon regime security and political repression – things anathema to Marx’s own life, as it happens, even notwithstanding the vital necessity of either an open space for dissension or an escalating ineffectiveness of repression for a Revolution to actually forment and occur; and c) the fact that the overarching ‘outcome’ of all of this appears very much to *not* be a universal uprising of Proletariat – but instead, a resurrection of the old Confucian concept of the “Mandate of Heaven”, and the gradual expansion of this sphere (possibly a “co-prosperity” one) to encompass a pretty broad swathe of the globe under either direct Chinese suzerainty (c.f their territorial claims on India, for instance), or indirect economic neo-colonialism (c.f their relations with a number of less-well-off and less-independent countries including to a certain extent our own New Zealand). Something that is part and parcel bound up with d) a strenuous effort to manufacture what an older generation of Marxists would have rightfully termed “false class consciousness” in order to stave *off* any deposing of the capitalist-coercive regime in power in Beijing or elsewhere; which is e) itself not a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, still less even a Lenninist “Vanguard Party” – but rather an establishment network of technocratic managerialist damn well mandarins … that represent the *actual* salient force and engine in Chinese politics and political economy rather than the vague and impersonal “class struggle” – and that’s without even getting into how f) the “class” dimension has moved from “let’s build an industrial proletariat or something” through to “let’s get a middle class and some seriously well off people happening” instead [there’s another discursion somewhere about Marx’s failure to properly predict “The Middle Class” as a thing .. but THAT IS ANOTHER STORY FOR ANOTHER TIME]

Now don’t get me wrong – there’s much to look at in China’s last few decades of history and self-authored economic development which is … pretty impressive. Particularly if you don’t really care about any human costs that might have been borne in the process.

And from a certain perspective, it would be perhaps difficult to fault the PRC from acting in its own self-interest and managing to take China from the decaying post-Qing quasi-colonized ruins of the early half of the 20th century … through to an emergent Great Power fully capable of carrying out many of the same antics which the (predominantly) European metropoles wrought upon the world at large (and China in particular, funnily enough) over the previous three hundred years or so.

Ironic, arguably, but that’s the nature of history and international relations. A bitter joke from the perspective of the less-powerful and a richly rewarding punch-line for the Ascendent among the assembled chorus of states.

But whatever its relative merits or shortcomings as a system and a project, I do not believe that it is in any meaningful way “Marxist” – so much as almost the opposite, a “mirror image” say (hence why everything is *exactly the wrong way round* while still possessing similar shape to the passive observer).

In fact, it seems rather hard to escape the supposition that we know very well how Marx himself would have reacted and responded to the PRC attempting to claim his legacy as their own.

In 1883, not long before his death, Karl Marx penned a missive to two French socialists who claimed to be acting in his ideology’s name … first calling them out for “revolutionary phrase-mongering” in lieu of actual, meaningful pro-Worker activity (a charge which seems peculiarly relevant to the People’s Republic of China whenever it chooses to LARP as a “revolutionary front” or whatever – although this aptness of a phrase is perhaps somewhat ironic given what Marx was actually critiquing Guesde and Lafargue on at the time was their opposition to “reformism” within a capitalist context), and then bluntly stating that if what these guys were doing was Marxism, then “what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist”.

Good thing, too.

Because i’m *pretty sure* that being a dissident journalist slash philosopher publishing frequent and passionate exhortations to building a better and more just society … is the sort of thing that gets you placed under indefinite house-arrest or in several peoples’ bodies one organ at a time over in the PRC these days.

And it would be *quite* a shame to lose him!

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/05/13/if-this-is-marxism-then-i-am-not-a-marxist-what-would-karl-think-of-the-prc-claiming-his-200th-birthday/feed/5Juchee Vs McWorld – On The Perhaps Surprising Twilight Of The Idols Commencing In North Koreahttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/05/02/juchee-vs-mcworld-on-the-perhaps-surprising-twilight-of-the-idols-commencing-in-north-korea/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/05/02/juchee-vs-mcworld-on-the-perhaps-surprising-twilight-of-the-idols-commencing-in-north-korea/#commentsTue, 01 May 2018 20:54:43 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=100015

But then I thought .. what if this is actually a shrewd move by Kim Jong-Un to take advantage of the “law” of liberal international relations – the so-called “Golden Arches Peace Theory” – whereby apparently, if you’ve got a McDonalds in your country, another nation with a McDonalds isn’t supposed to attack you (like, normatively speaking, obviously).

[Depressingly [DPRK-ingly?], this is a more recent outgrowth of what’s known as “democratic peace theory” – the idea that democracies apparently don’t or shouldn’t (theoretically speaking) go to war with one another; although as it turns out, this older formulation is arguably less reliable than the thing with the french fries … make of that what you will]

The slight issue with the “theory”, though, is that it’s fairly blatantly not true. A rather common critique, to be sure, of much of Thomas Friedman’s output.

You see – only a year or so after Friedman first propounded it, cresting the wave of the ’90s “HOPE” “NEOLIBERALISM” “END OF HISTORY” zeitgeist-vibe … NATO started bombing Serbia. A country which at the time had a few McDonalds outlets to its name.

I say “had”. Shortly after the bombing started, Belgradians took it upon themselves to demolish them. (They were eventually rebuilt once NATO ceased combat operations – which, somewhat perplexingly, Friedman appeared to take as a vindication of his theory’s practical value).

And there have, of course, been a few other rather prominent counter-examples since such as the 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia, or the 1999 Kargil War between India and Pakistan. All of which had McDonalds in operation within their borders at the time.

Although as some pundits noted with amusement, Russia appeared to be shutting down a number of prominent McDonalds restaurants in 2014, about the same time that the Donetsk seceded from Ukraine with Russian support.

Still, despite the obvious unreality of its core tenet – that it’s engagement with the globalized capitalist economic system, rather than, say, cautious and careful diplomacy based upon mutual respect and understanding (insofar as such things are possible between states (operating) within a realist context/set of assumptions) which leads to enduring peace – it’s worth revisiting Golden Arches Peace Theory in the present day.

Not least because I have absolutely no doubt that somewhere in Washington, policy-wonks and think-tankers will be gleefully propounding the idea that the setting up of fast-food chains and other ‘soft power’ proponderances of the “American Way Of Life” in the DPRK will first infiltrate and then assimilate North Korea into the Atlanticist-authored vision for geopolitical order under a certain unipolar hegemon.

And yeah, sure, in the *short term*, it’s certainly possible to postulate that the ‘novelty value’ of being able to eat questionably nutritious food of an entirely different nature and all the other things that go alongside Amerika setting up (literal) shop in your neighbourhood *may* actually have an impact on some people.

I just don’t see this offering any lasting nor serious guarantee of peace.

Meanwhile, there’s also no guarantee that simply putting up some Golden Arches in a country in a manner not entirely unakin to a lower-key flag of conquest for a socio-economic system … will actually lead to the “host” population in question all uniformly and unanimously electing to just casually become slightly-cosmetically-different Americans [or, i suppose, South Koreans] overnight.

In fact, there’s – once again – quite some evidence and theoretical spade work to suggest that, if anything, the *opposite* can very readily be true.

This is detailed in another article (and subsequent book) which came out a few years before the publication of Friedman’s original piece on the rather surprising alleged connection between having Hamburglar active in your nation’s capital and being at peace – Benjamin Barber’s “Jihad vs McWorld”.

As you can probably guess from the title, it details the notion that “globalization” – and particularly the cultural elements of same – do not simply occur in a vacuum, imposed upon passive mannequins rather than men. But instead, invite skepticism, scrutiny, and somewhat more often than pro-Globalism forces care to admit .. outright opposition or even surprisingly successful push-back.

In its place, an exaltation of ‘older’ ways of doing things – traditional values and understandings – may grow up; militantly or gently-but-firmly re-asserting themselves against the mono-cultural and rather tacky .. flaccid, even? .. ‘universalizing’ paradigm of ‘McWorld’.

At which point, no doubt, we’ll get to see just how genuinely committed the various Atlanticist-consensus countries which presently exist ‘neath the “Golden Arches” are to *not* attempting to impose their world-view by force upon the North Korean – or any other – population.

In some ways, it’s interesting to directly compare and contrast the mindsets that went into both the Golden Arches Peace Theory and Jihad Vs Mcworld.

The latter was a the product of an ‘age of uncertainty’ – a period in between dominant zeitgeists if you like, wherein many reasonable people were refreshingly reluctant to take for granted the possibility of teleology or Eschaton-Immanentization in geopolitics. Where it wasn’t just blithely assumed that because the Cold War was seemingly ending, that this meant the Nation-State pretty much would be (in its post-Westphalian nature and significance/salience, at any rate) too.

In short, where *actual thinking* was taking place about what might transpire in the future and how best to navigate continuously evolving circumstances in such a way as to *avoid* the potential fall-back into strife-riven paradigms of the past (whichever past and whenever we might be referring to with that).

The former, meanwhile, is huffed up on its own triumphalism – confident (even, going by later reprints and new editions, following subsequent events which ought surely to have disproven its core ethos) well beyond the point of arrogance that the End of History hadn’t just come … but that the author’s views were both riding the wave of causality and powering it.

Even though Friedman didn’t mean it in that sense, I always found it telling that he attempted to pooh-pooh his critics on the concept by referring to them as “realists”

Sitting here in the closing years of the 2010s, I feel it pretty uncontentious to state that we, too, are very much in “uncharted waters”. We’ve witnessed the decay and if not outright collapse of a number of epochs and their accompanying meta-narratives over the span of the last quarter century or so. And out with them have, by necessity rather than choice (for a depressingly large number of foreign policy actors, at least), gone many of the comfortable assumptions-into-assertions which have governed what “should” happen in politics – whether local-/national- or of the “geo-” variety.

But as we seemingly see every time John Bolton, Nikki Haley, Hillary Clinton, Theresa May etc. etc. etc. open their mouths .. old habits die hard.

It’s worth critically evaluating things like “Golden Arches Peace Theory” in the context of what’s looking set to happen in North Korea over the next few years [the opening up to Western economic operations, I mean – not so much the “Libya-fication” .. hopefully] precisely because of that fact.

As otherwise … who wants to be left stranded high and dry – “beached as, bro” – when the much-vaunted “tide of history” actually turns out to have been going the other way this whole time, regardless of what the “model” “thinks”.

Slightly odd thought (which requires further development): The Commonwealth is at something of a crossroads at present, and understandably so. After all, it’s never truly made a ‘proper’ transition from a sort of vestigial “ashes of empire” into a properly multi-national bloc on any but a talking-shop level.

Something which is going to be rather interesting, though, is how the Commonwealth chooses to re-organize itself in light of the changed geopolitical realities of the 21st century – and in particular, which member-states [present .. or even, perhaps, future] are likely to emerge as both leaders *within* the Commonwealth sphere, as well as the incipient ‘axials’ around which the future structure and impetus of the Commonwealth are likely to gestate or gel.

For the time-being at least, British dominance of the whole thing seems an arguable fait accompli. This is particularly the case as a result of #Brexitplacing far more emphasis upon the imperative vitality of non-European foreign relations for the UK (something which, as I have capaciously argued previously, renders that particular development quite the win for us down here in New Zealand!).

Yet for an array of reasons, it seems very plausible to prophesy that this state of affairs will be unlikely to continue indefinitely.

Obviously, the ‘future shape’ of the Commonwealth, and the relative apportions or agglomerations of ‘power’ therein, will be significantly impacted by which principles and objectives the Commonwealth structure winds up prioritizing.

If it reconvens as a ‘trade-bloc’, then nations with considerable economic cloud will become more prominent, for instance. While if it (instead – it is always a bit iffy attempting to do this in harmony with economic motives) chooses to emphasize the nebulous notions of ‘shared values’, democracy, and Anglospheric conceptions of ‘human rights’ .. then the virtue-signalling states will undoubtedly have the most to say – whether or not anyone’s actually listening.

But while certain polities such as Canada and Australia look set to loom large in the Commonwealth’s future constellation of aspirations almost regardless of which direction it chooses to go, due to their reasonably sized populations and markets and the relative influence of their political systems … I found myself pondering an altogether different angle.

Namely whether, as what will undoubtedly be the single most significant state within the Commonwealth in almost any term one chooses to mention given sufficient time, whether we might actually see a most intriguing development of the Commonwealth pertaining to India.

It would, to be sure, be an ironic state of affairs to see the vestigial remnants of the empire which so iniquitously subjugated the Subcontinent in centuries previous … eventually evolve into a community of influence built around the emergent Great Power grown up in its wake. Although as Mark Twain (iirc) once allegedly observed – history doesn’t “repeat” so much as it “rhymes”.

Still, it would be a most interesting historical and geopolitical development; as while India has done stirling work at shoring up diplomatic ties in various parts of the world in recent years, its perceived ‘pivot’ away from Russia and accompanying improvement in relations with the Americans, has not necessarily significantly improved its relative power position given the increasing competitiveness the Chinese have displayed in both India’s own neighbourhood/friend-circles as well as the potential areas for Indian diplomatic expansion.

With all of this in mind, the Commonwealth represents as a potential natural ‘longer term’ avenue for drawing together a worthwhile array of economic and political partners for India, who also in many cases have pre-existing reasons to share important elements of the Indian geopolitical vision RE Her northern neighbour.

There are some putative ‘sticking points’, of course. For one thing, Pakistan retains its Commonwealth membership. For another, following this month’s CHOGM meeting, Prince Charles looks set to continue the Royalist tradition of an unelected (sort-of) English sovereign presiding over the organization.

Yet who knows how things may differ in twenty to thirty years.

Indeed, about the only thing that can be said with any certainty at this point (other than India’s increasing salience for matters geopolitical), is that if properly managed, the Commonwealth’s ongoing post-War transition looks set to provide a bountiful opportunity for member-states in the years to come.

I *seriously* doubt whether any of the officers involved in the incident would have thought anything even vaguely reminiscent of “one less to clog the prisons” when attempting to remonstrate with the machete-wielding man, or for that matter when sighting him up or pulling the trigger.

Quite the opposite, most likely.

And yet, by shooting his mouth off in the way he has, McVicar has inadvertently provided a soundbite, a talking point for anybody who wishes to subjunctively tarr our Police as basically being the Americans, due to the impression that his views might have some currency amidst people generally concerned about law and order – including, most especially, its chartered upholders, the Police.

If McVicar’s a genuine enthusiast for summary executions in lieu of judicial process [and I’m *not* saying that that’s what yesterday’s occurrence was, by any stretch of the imagination – simply that that appears to be the logical next step to McVicar’s public advocacy], then that’s his business.

And a sorry business it is, too.

But by attempting to connect this to the New Zealand Police – and by stating that his “thoughts are with the officer” – he can only be seen to be using this unfortunate incidence to attempt to push a pre-determined political agenda.

And worse … far worse … one which he seemingly wants the Police to take on board.
The Police don’t need “advocacy” like this; and in many cases, I would respectfully suggest .. neither do the victims of crime.

We are lucky to live in a (for the most part) reasonably sane and often humane society, wherein our law enforcement neither goes into every potential encounter armed – nor undertake decisions about when and how to use those parts of their equipment lightly.

Our judicial system is most definitely not perfect; and for all his asinine bluster, even McVicar’s comment on this issue appears to implicitly acknowledge that our groaning and wildly over-full prisons are a key part of the problem rather than the solution when it comes to reducing offending.

But the conversation around ameliorating the size of New Zealand’s population behind bars is NOT one which ought to include the advocacy for death as an ‘easy’ means to ‘thin the herd’.

And especially not in the absence of proper due process (the provision of which, as we can see from any number of American states, actually leads to various inmates languishing in prison for *longer* as they exhaust their appeals process).

Instead, an ideal place to start would be the reversal of National’s [and more specifically, Judith Collins’] alterations to our nation’s bail- and remand- laws; which presently see up to three thousand New Zealanders, who haven’t (yet) been convicted of any crime, forced into the same brutalizing environment as actual hardened criminals.

McVicar knows that this is not a sustainable option – to wheel out an incipient return to England’s “Bloody Code” at each and every possible opportunity.

People get tired of it. Start to see through it. The tides of public opinion go out somewhat on the dual vipers of “throw away the key” and the anti-biblical demands for a pound of flesh or an eye in recompense for an eye.

The self-styled baying voices in the wilderness who somehow simultaneously conceive of themselves as speaking somewhat-bidden upon the behalves of a “silent majority” … suddenly find, to their horror, that they actually *are* now enfolded and enfiladed by relative obscurity for their person and occasionally even their agenda (assuming that younger, brighter sparks haven’t turned up to claim the standard for same).

These remarks apply capaciously to just about any political cause – and more especially for the attempted-populist ones and the Conservative Moral Panic types of salient.

In the case of criminal justice, such a shift has become clearly visible over a reasonable period of time – a significant proof of which being the softly emergent moral consensus comprised of everybody from ‘compassionate conservatives’ [think Bill English’s comments in a previous life] on outward, who’ve begun to openly ponder if there might not be a “better way” than just continually tightening the thumb-screws upon an ever-expanding prison population in the hope that something miraculously changes other than the proportion of the tax-bill which goes thence.

Whether and how “smart on crime” might begin to supplant “tough on crime” as the magic metre for law-and-order policy debate.

In fact, as applies McVicar, I dare say that the relatively diminishing media and public attention he’s been getting over the past few years is at least partially symptomatic of that. Possibly mixed with the fallout-radius tarnishment of having cast aside his veneer of “political neutrality” to stand for the CCCP [Colin Craig’s Conservative Party – to distinguish it from the subsequent, and in matters of sentencing policy, occasionally perhaps surprisingly more enlightened Leighton Baker iteration]; and probably infused with the customary de-emphasis upon one which accompanies an ever advancing age and crank-sounding “advocacy”.

However it’s happened, it seems like a fairly safe bet to conclude that in the manner of a petulant toddler who’s hell-bent upon not being ignored as a response to his previous antics, that McVicar’s gone for Shock Value in lieu of substance or sense.

Shouting loudly and offensively because it’s vaguely guaranteed to get a headline and a spot on the 6 o’clock news.

Deliberately saying something inflammatory and highly insensitive to pretty much everyone actually involved; on grounds that it’s “easier” than actually coming up with a statement worthwhile to utter. And fully cognisant that, in any case, his own ongoing marginalization makes it inordinately likely that nothing else he’d say would plausibly smoulder brightly enough to draw a watchful media eye.

Oh well.

That’s the thing about these kinds of “inflammatory remarks”. Sooner or later, you find yourself with so much pitch on your hands, and be-laden by self-set sparks, that the straw-men one sought to tarry with have instead trapped you in your very own Wicker Man.

At which point the choice effectively becomes one of whether you wish to bow out ‘gracefully’ from public life [insofar as such a thing might be possible for one such as he]; or whether you take a leaf from Aristophanes’ book [The Wasps, to be precise – funnily enough, a play with *much* rather direct relevance to what’s going on here, now that I think about it …], and “learn from Theramenes, that shrewd politician – to move with the times, and improve your position!’

The chances of a semi-ambulatory briar patch like McVicar actually taking heed of this, and electing to soften his stance and moderate or modulate his views in light of changing conditions out here in the Court of Public Opinion as applies acceptable conduct for a self-appointed Prosecutor from the viewing gallery … are perhaps only adequately expressible as a mathematical function of the sort used to assess the outputs of alternate universe theory

Which leaves the final option … burn yourself and any credibility you might once have had out, upon a self-constructed pyre.

A few more of these such outbursts, particularly in light of his former Deputy, Ruth Money choosing to go public in castigation of him on Newshub last night (what did I say earlier about the standard being claimed by others of a newer vintage?); and there may prove to be little left of McVicar but a guttering candle, suffocated – metaphorically, of course – upon the auto-generated smoke produced in lieu of any *actual* illumination.

Good riddance.

For what it’s worth, my thoughts are also (albeit not exclusively) with the officers involved in the weekend’s incident. It cannot have been an easy thing to make the determination to pull the trigger; and I have no doubt whatsoever that the officer responsible will also be mulling events over in his mind, particularly given the several inquiries into the matter that are now presently underway – in addition to the inevitable trial-by-media that always seems to grow up following these things even in the apparent absence of half the facts.

But they are also with the family of the chap who lost his life this Easter Weekend just gone. And, for that matter, with the dead man himself. We don’t know, at this stage, what combination of demeanour, drink, drugs, debilitating mental illness, or other factors entirely might have lead to his regrettable decision to come at police whilst wielding a machete.

But whatever it was, it seems hard not to think of him, too, as a person. Not least because that’s presumably how those near and dear to him will be conceptualizing him at present.

That’s something that all too often seems to fall by the wayside for these “tough on crime” ‘advocacy’ types. The fact that everyone involved in the situation – whether offender or policeman or victim – is actually a human being.

Rather than a mere political prop to be wheeled out and drawn upon and puppeteered via press-release til they are no longer useful for that *particular* day’s attempted headline-grab.

Police don’t usually advertise their vocation on social media, and with good reason. To do so can invite unwelcome interactions from the public such as torrid torrents of unwarranted and unasked for abuse.

Yet the trouble with silence (the official position of the NZ Police on McVicar’s utterance – presumably to avoid dignifying it with a response) is that it can leave such reprehensibilities to fester unchallenged.

It is presumably a mark of just how significantly McVicar’s stunt has ‘crossed the line’ [in this case, the thin, blue one] that it resulted in an officer choosing to front up and voice a broadly felt condemnation of same.

Who knows – it might even potentially dissuade McVicar from continuing into the future with his own ballistics-related habitual pastime … that of frequent and potent discharges (of his mouth) into his own foot.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/04/02/nothing-sensible-nor-to-trust-in-garth-mcvicars-sentence-on-shooting/feed/8For NZ First De Nile Is A River That Runs Through Warkworthhttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/03/29/for-nz-first-de-nile-is-a-river-that-runs-through-warkworth/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/03/29/for-nz-first-de-nile-is-a-river-that-runs-through-warkworth/#commentsWed, 28 Mar 2018 17:59:23 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=98675

Two brief thoughts on this imbroglio presently embroiling New Zealand First up in Rodney.

The first is that Simon Bridges is engaging in a fulsome rewrite of reality when he claims that MPs (and potentially Ministers of the Crown) threatening to withhold funding for projects for political gain is “not the way we do things”, particularly in the New Zealand National Party.

After all, it was only a few months ago that National’s then-Associate Housing Minister, Alfred Ngaro, was publicly stating through the media that National would deny funding to organizations which criticized it – in particular, singling out Willie Jackson and the Manukau Urban Maori Authority as targets for losing funding and a charter school application thanks to their trenchant criticism of the then-Government over housing policy and other areas.

Ngaro also directly claimed that he’d paid Jackson a personal visit to outline this rather brusque diktat that “bagging” National for alleged political gain or otherwise would lead to funding and approval for programmes championed by the critical figures and foundations in question being “off the table”; although Jackson disputes this.

I mention those last details because they sound eerily familiar to what is alleged to have occurred up at the Orewa Surf Club over the weekend between newly minted NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft and former National Defence Minister slash present local Rodney Electorate MP Mark Mitchell.

In specia, Marcroft is supposed to have asked for a meeting with Mitchell, turned up, and bluntly laid out that Mitchell was to cease his support for a particular river restoration project if he wanted it to see funding from the Government.

She reportedly stated she was there at the instruction of an unnamed Minister of the Crown.

This is allegedly supposed to have occurred due to Mitchell’s previous attacks on current Defence Minister (and present NZ First MP) Ron Mark. However, while that might be what Marcroft *claimed* was the underlying causation for her somewhat dubious actions, for various reasons partially related to internal NZ First politics [e.g. what Marcroft’s patron appeared to say about that incident when it turned up in the media], I’m not buying it.

An obvious line of suspicion would be to ponder the role of Shane Jones in all of this. After all, the Provincial Growth Fund falls squarely under his Ministerial Portfolios, and Marcroft is supposed to have directly sought an assurance from Mitchell that Jones would not be questioned in Parliament about any decision to award cash to the Mahurangi River project, particularly by National’s Regional Development spokesperson Paul Goldsmith [and given Goldsmith’s record in other areas, I would have been stunningly surprised if he could even locate the Mahurangi River on a map, let alone single it out in Parliamentary Question Time unbidden].

However, Jones has stated that he is not the Minister being referred to by Marcroft – and for what it’s worth, even though I have previously levelled quite some criticisms against him, I actually do believe him on this score.

Besides which, for all his faults, Jones tends to possess a certain degree of political cunning and a much more subtle selection of political underlings [‘tools’] with which to execute his will. I doubt he would have been stupid enough to engineer something as crystal-china-sledgehammer-operated-without-safety-goggles as all of this.

Instead, I cannot help but suspect that the age-old question – Cui Bono? [‘Who Benefits?’] – proposes a rather immediate answer here as to precisely *which* Minister of the Crown may be overtly responsible for what appears to have occurred.

The Mahurangi River lies in Rodney, and more specifically, runs directly through the town of Warkworth.

There is a particular MP, recently elevated to the ranks of Cabinet as a Minister, who lives in Warkworth and who has previously unsuccessfully contested the Rodney Electorate on quite a number of occasions.

This particular Minister has also had a bit of a history of using Marcroft as a mouthpiece – including, in an instance in which I was personally involved in (as the target), when it comes to perhaps morally dubious undertakings.

It is understandable why Marcroft would be employed in such a manner by this Minister – according to my information, they went to school together way back when.

It is also understandable why said Minister would wish to claw back any advantage possible from incumbent MP Mark Mitchell over the next two and a half years before they contest the Rodney Electorate again.

And that apparently includes endeavouring to deny Mitchell the ability to positively associate himself with a river restoration project.

Although personally, considering it has taken now some nine long years to get *any* National Party MP to even *acknowledge* there’s a problem with at least one of our more significant rivers, I probably would just have let him get on with it instead were I in the relevant decision-making position.

Still, all of this brought to mind a quotation occasionally attributed to Sun Tzu [although also cited by Umberto Eco as being of Indian origin]:

“If you wait by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy floating by”.

Unlikely, perhaps, in this case (as the river in question appears to be in need of some restoration work); but nevertheless, my penchant for purviewing political pop-corn aside, it might be good if the Minister in question would just get on with the job they’re nominally there for – rather than attempting to re-enact select scenes from House of Cards every two to six months with an approximately 50-50 win rate.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/03/29/for-nz-first-de-nile-is-a-river-that-runs-through-warkworth/feed/4On The Greens’ Transition From Voice In The Wilderness To Ventriloquism Through Handing Their Questions To Nationalhttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/03/20/on-the-greens-transition-from-voice-in-the-wilderness-to-ventriloquism-through-handing-their-questions-to-national/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/03/20/on-the-greens-transition-from-voice-in-the-wilderness-to-ventriloquism-through-handing-their-questions-to-national/#commentsMon, 19 Mar 2018 19:27:20 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=98366

Unquestionably the biggest news in politics of the past week – despite several somewhat sensationalized stories that’ve been in circulation recently – was the Green Party announcing a bold move to give the National Party their Primary Questions in Parliament on occasions when the former are not using them.

Now, this might seem like a triflingly arcane thing to get all worked up about – mere minutiae of Parliamentary procedure in lieu of actual substantial action.

And yes, that’s pretty much how Parliamentary Questions seem to have been treated by Governments and their allies since time immemorial; as little more than a cursory formality wherein ‘patsie’ questions designed to provide positive PR for the parties in power jostled with occasional Oppositional lancing in an effective contest of questionable “questioning” and ever-starved-for-space interrogation from those presently deprived of power.

Which is precisely why the Green Party sought to inject added relevancy to them by giving the Opposition a greater go at holding the Government to account through them by giving them additional questions when they’re not themselves using them – rather than simply proffering ‘patsies’ off their own bat to questionable discernible effect.

The obvious question from the skeptical (or, indeed, outright – and perhaps justifiably – cynical) perspectives of politicos across the spectrum and country, is if the Greens are so hell-bent on keeping their Labour Party and New Zealand First associates “honest” … why not just simply ask better and more probing questions of them themselves, instead of ‘farming out’ this sacred responsibility to the Nats.

And it is a fair line of inquiry.

Yet when one considers the overall ‘optics’ of ‘tough questioning’ in the House, an answer almost immediately reveals itself.

Namely, that were the Greens to *actually* put serious heat and/or screws upon the Labour-NZF Government they nominally support, then either the Media would start blowing it out of all proportion into some sort of over-hyped “collapse of the Government imminent” campaign [i.e. they’d quite likely start working over-time to attempt to make such a thing ensue], replete with any array of quoting from the sad annals of Parliamentary History viz. the Alliance Party’s often-rocky relationship with its Labour Party partners, to try and prove their point.

Meanwhile, it would seem very plausible indeed that Labour and its apparatchiks would seek behind closed doors [as well as with more measured spite & venom in public] to castigate the Greens in no uncertain terms for their temerity in DARING to ask actual, probing questions of the Government instead of simply propping up the more usual and customary “window dressing”.

It would, in short, provoke yet another bout of “THE GREENS ARE TOO IMMATURE/’PRINCIPLED’ TO BE ALLOWED NEAR GOVERNMENT” from all the usual voices. Despite the fact that actually getting to the heart of matters and being straight-up about concerns is arguably one of the most mature things one can do – whether in or out of politics.

And while one might be forgiven for presuming that the “Agree to DIsagree” provisions in the agreements Labour signed with its support partners late last year *should* mean that the latter are more easily able to vent their displeasure with the decisions and undertakings of the former (or, for that matter, with each other for the two support partners) – as we have perhaps seen when it came to New Zealand First backtracking on the TPPA earlier this year, these appear to provide no sure guarantee of outcomes nor ‘safe space’ for discourse in public when the chips are down on important issues.

But with this particular chartered course the Greens are undertaking – wherein it’s National rather than the Greens who’ll do many of the hard-attack interrogatives .. as is the constitutional role of Her Majesty’s *Loyal* Opposition in the first place – they really do seem to get the best of multiple worlds.

On the one hand, the Government gets held to account more and more frequently than would otherwise be the case; whilst simultaneously enabling a greater ‘easing’ of relations between the Labour and Greens parties than would likely be possible in a clime of actual and overt Parliamentary back-and-forth between the two.

The Green’s proposal also may manage to avoid the sort of Constitutional not-crises that accompanied New Zealand First in 2005-2008 seeking to ask searching questions of or even actively oppose the Government on certain matters, despite Winston holding a Ministerial Warrant with them at the time.

And, not to put too fine a point on it (although it’s doubtless been the single loudest refrain yet issued on this whole matter), the deal with National *also* allows the Greens to put vital distance between themselves and Labour in the run-up to the 2020 General Election – although I do think that much of the sentiment attempting to treat this as a pre-Coalition Engagement Party with the Nats is rather alarmist and overblown.

For the moment, at any rate.

(Also, if you’re wondering why it’s so vitally necessary for the Greens to manage to distinguish themselves, even *detach* themselves somewhat from Labour, while still managing to represent their values, you can consult some of the rather detailed analyses I wrote up on the arguable necessity of NZ First doing much the same thing, last year. Or, to phrase it more bluntly & succinctly: Government, and Near-Government are places where small parties go to Die. With the sole exception of the Green Party in each of 2002 and 2008, I cannot think of ANY ‘small’ party in MMP History here in New Zealand that has actually managed to increase its share of the Vote following its supporting a Government, of either stripe and whether on Confidence & Supply or outright Coalition. Instead, it invariably goes the other way – with eventual slipping below the 5% threshold or command of an electorate seat seeming inevitable as the ‘gravitational forces’ around such a concentration of power and media attention inexorably pull the smaller vessel apart.)

In any case, it has been interesting to take in the broad spectrum of responses to this announcement from the various sorts of people who take some measure of interest in the ongoing churnings of our political firmament.

For example – I am presently rather amused by some New Zealand First people who were OK with said party siding with the Nats a few months ago being rather visibly annoyed at the vaguest appearance of the Greens co-operating with same.

I am also rather amused by the sorts of people who spent the last eight or so years telling me that a vote for NZF was a vote for National, either having to defend/justify this deal or turn a most distinct shade of purple in the face with quiet infuriation at the situation.

And, eminently predictably, almost everybody involved is somehow attempting to blame James Shaw for the whole scenario at hand (because three years on from his elevation to the Co-Leadership, the “JAMES SHAW IS A RIGHT-WINGER WHO QUOTED MARGARET THATCHER IN PARLIAMENT” meme steadfastly refuses to die).

But you know what? Even leaving aside my technical arguments above, I actually happen to think that the Greens, and Shaw in particular, are on to something with this unfolding course of action.

There’s three ways to play politics, in my [oft-ineluctable] experience.

There’s the “MY PARTY RIGHT OR WRONG” way; the “my party right or wrong – when right to be kept right, and when wrong to be *set* right” approach; and somewhere out on a limb reserved for extremists and the rare diamonds of genuinity … the “principles uber alles” kind.

Attempting to insist that a party that is *not* party to Cabinet, and whose relationship with the present Government is one of the provision of Confidence & Supply with a few [again, extra-Cabinet] Ministerials ought to be one of slavish adherence rather than reasoned criticism is very much in that *first* camp instead of the second one.

Meanwhile, putting greater scrutiny on the Government of the day, even (indeed – especially) if it’s one which you in principle support, is definitely in the second grouping. It may even veer into the third, from time to time.

Now don’t get me wrong.

I understand why some people are feeling hurt, shocked, betrayed, and viscerally annoyed about all of this.

In some cases, it is because the notion of assisting an Opposition is seen as giving an inch of ground to “The Enemy”.

In others, it is because they long ago decided that being in politics to *achieve* something is a very much *secondary* priority to the sort of loyalty expected of a “team player”.

In yet still more, it is perhaps they don’t like the idea of their own ‘tribe’ being held to account by perceived ‘lessers’; and for a different sort again, the ongoing concern about whether all of this might help contribute to this Labour-NZF-[Greens] Government being merely a one-term one.

There are valid concerns and kernels of truth in each of these perspectives.

Yet casting my mind back over the past few decades of New Zealand Politics [something that yes, does tend to entail remembering events from some years or even decades before my own birth], I can think of no greater ‘door’ for the infiltration of untrammelled Evil into our Parliament and thus our public life than that most pernicious of foes – uncritical support for one’s own side “just because”.

I will not sully this post with the implicit specter of the Nuremberg Defence.

But if we consider what happened in 1984-7, and again from 1990 through to 1996 [dis-honourable mention, arguably, for 1996-1999, and most assuredly for mid-’97 to 99] … we find that notionally otherwise ‘principled’ people in each of those Governments, who’d signed up to support and advance *one* set of things [and yes, there is much commonality between, say, Labour in its pre-Rogernomics days of advocating for the working man and National’s 1990 ‘rollback’ manifesto – hence also NZ First six years later, as a ‘union’ of both forces] found themselves press-ganged in repugnant service of almost the complete opposite.

And how did it happen? Well, simple.

They decided to just “do what we’re told” [with, to be fair and sure, oft-explicit threats of Expulsion if you should happen to (externally) object or try and put a stop to the whole thing].

They decided that shutting up and just blithely supporting the people ‘above’ them was the supremest virtue to which they could affix some modicum of their political action &amp; capital.

They, in short, made their seemingly-inevitable “peace” with adhering to group-think and what we would perhaps today refer to as “tribalism” [a word, in this sense and context, that diminishes &amp; demeans *actual* tribes as a system of human organization, but I digress].

And you know where “they” are now?

Almost to a man, cast upon the ash-heap of history. Forgotten about, running far-from-the-headlines quisling efforts with foreign banks or attempting to potter away in other private sector roles.

Emerging every so often to reflect upon what they did and why – and, if Jim Bolger’s statements in recent years are anything to go by, sadly concluding that they got it wrong and helped to play their part in (further) unleashing terrible forces upon our Nation.

All made possible by this most INSIDIOUS “conspiracy of silence” with regard to (externally visible – and from thence, even *internal* “if you know what’s good for you”) criticism of “their own side”.

So if something good comes from Shaw’s stance of disavowing such slavish adulation of his nominal partners in next-to-Government, that will more than likely be it.

I am *not* saying that Labour circa 2018 is *actually* going to be Labour circa 1984 all over again.

But as we’ve seen with the #CPTPP or whatever the #TPPA is being called these days, as an example, there remains a clear and present reason for certain parties and other political actors to take upon themselves the mantle akin to that of Old Testament Prophets – “voices in the wilderness” who abjectly warn “IF THIS GOES ON…” and maybe perhaps eventually find themselves leading angry armies of the politically dispossessed to the ‘clearing and cleaning of house’ should events take a turn for the irrecoverably decrepit &amp; depraved.

Once upon a time, I would have pointed a finger in a particular direction with that above paragraph, if you get my drift.

But I now realize that the responsibility – nay, the right – of holding Government (and, indeed, the entire present socio-politico-economic paradigm we labour under and within) to account is far broader than that deserving of a mere ‘partisan’ champion.

So kudos to the Green party for this move.

Let us hope it functions as intended.

[My thanks to my former NZ Politics lecturer, Patrick Hine, for his insightful comments around the projected rationale for the Greens’ decision – which played a strong role in helping to clarify my thoughts on this matter between 07 a.m yesterday morning and the present time of setting finger to keyboard in explication.]

Good grief. The National Party’s attempted attack on Ron Mark would be farcical if it weren’t so downright facile. They’re claiming Defence Force aircraft were illegitimately used to transport Ron to official commitments in his capacity as Defence Minister from “Mark’s hometown, Masterton”.

That’s ridiculous for a start. I thought *everybody* knew that Ron hails from Carterton (where he was the incredibly popular local mayor before his re-entry into national politics). Although given that National only seems to discover the Regions – and the Wairarapa in particular – once they’re relegated to Opposition, we can perhaps forgive them for confusing two different towns in their breathless rush to seem relevant due to a lack of familiarity.

But leaving aside the Member for Rodney’s evident difficulty with toponyms, political history, and basic New Zealand geography … as soon as we take a look at the facts of the allegation against Ron Mark, it quite rapidly becomes apparent that Ron doesn’t appear to have done anything wrong.

I mean, seriously. It is bizarre in the extreme to take issue with a Defence Minister being on board a regularly scheduled flight to Antarctica which departed from and then returned to Christchurch (unless, perhaps, Mitchell’s understanding of New Zealand cartography is so ill-fitting that he thinks that too is somewhere near Carterton and Masterton .. on account of its rather famous inhabitant, “Anderton“). And with deference to Mitchell’s repeated commentary about how Ron ought apparently to have used Crown cars instead of helicopters – I can only ponder whether Mitchell knows something I don’t about the amphibious capacity of the former.

After all, how else to attempt to explain Mark Mitchell seemingly prescribing them as a means to get from the South Island to the HMNZS Canterbury – and thence, yes, to Masterton. Or, for that matter, to and from the Chatham Islands in the company of a number of other Ministers, Media, and Defence Force personnel for a Maori Battalion funeral. Are these Crown cars actually airlift-capable extra-capacity busses or something?

I rather suspect that Mark Mitchell is still smarting over his failure to win the National Party’s leadership contest, and is therefore seeking to take out his ire at Mark in lieu of doing something useful.

Perhaps we shall find out that Mitchell’s absurd accusations against Ron are merely what psychiatrists would term “an exercise in projection“.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/03/16/nationals-anti-aircraft-fire-at-ron-mark-proves-to-be-blanks/feed/12Get A Grip: Forcing A Handshake Is Not a Righthttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/03/12/get-a-grip-forcing-a-handshake-is-not-right/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/03/12/get-a-grip-forcing-a-handshake-is-not-right/#commentsSun, 11 Mar 2018 17:43:17 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=98108

Late last week we were treated to one of those regrettable instances of “THE COMMENTS SECTION HAS INCARNATED IN HUMAN FORM AND NOW APPEARS TO BE AMBLING ABOUT THE PLACE” … attempting to forcibly shake the hands of people, inter alia, apparently.

And were it just a case of a university staffer attempting to mount a soap-box on ‘civilizational values’ or whatever … but instead finding himself shipped off in a packing crate, then hardly more would need to be said.

But I noted with some considerable dismay any number of people leaping to the guy’s defence. Not merely quibbling over whether dismissal is the appropriate outcome for somebody making a seriously questionable use of an internal disciplinary process in order to try and push a cultural agenda. Actually taking some considerable offence of the “if you don’t like it, deportation!” kind [and, to be fair, various more gradated responses along the general spectrum of same], and engaging in that habitual ritual of greeting so beloved of the talkback radio-caller demographic that is the Jumping Up And Down and the Wild Gesticulations about the much-mythologized “PC GONE MAD” that’s allegedly responsible.

Even otherwise reasonable people not of the aforementioned societal grouping seemed pretty clear in their views that not necessarily wanting to press the flesh with your fellow man was some sort of grave infringement of the common decency of the nation which ought be responded to accordingly.

So let’s get one thing straight.

If you are trying to force somebody to have physical contact with you, then in all probability … you are being at least a bit of a dick. In fact, viewed from out of context, one could even go so far as to say that an older male going to such lengths to attempt to *force* a younger female student to touch him (particularly when it appears he’s aware she’s not down with it), looks a bit creepy.

But having said all that, and assuming it really *was* just about handshakes and such rather than some sort of incipient “WESTERN VALUES UBER ALLES” microaggression … [and leaving aside the slightly older custom/cultural more that you’re not supposed to be grabbing a lady’s hand, and instead waiting for her to offer it if she is of the handshaking variety] .. I really don’t see why somebody shouldn’t be able to turn down a handshake.

One of the things I really like about Hindu culture is that handshaking isn’t quite so much a thing. Instead, clasping *your own* hands together as an acknowledgement, or dependent upon relationship and your own station, the deployment of mudra postures, is perfectly satisfactory as a greeting. I’d say it’s *downright more meaningful* than replicating the ol “let’s shake him by the hand and see if any weapons fall out of his sleeves lest he try any funny business!” that forms the basis for the modern Western handshake … but then, I’m biased.

Now, part of my reasoning for having a preference in that direction is I’m not wild about touching other people’s hands. They tend to be greasy, oily, and according to quite the array of scientific studies, often covered in various bacteria, faecal matter, etc. etc. etc.

So something as simple, yet obviously intentional and direct as what you think of when one says “Namaste”, is pretty legit as an alternative.

Yet I’ve noticed that when I defer on a proffered handshake to instead do the above (with non-Hindus), as is my own preference, the reaction i get tends to be pretty nonplussed. Even a little offended.

For somebody who looks rather more different to the average, ordinary New Zealander than I do, such as the Muslim student in question, no doubt this would have felt magnified.

And apparently we’ve moved on from ‘merely’ Frantz Fanon’s dictum about the act of speaking being to “uphold the weight of a civilization” through to a “clash of civilizations” mindset being encapsulated in a dispute about a handshake.

But to turn the situation around a bit – one custom of the indigenous people of this fine land of ours is the Hongi. Which in terms of its symbolism goes rather further and deeper towards bringing people together than the humble handshake.

Yet I somewhat suspect that despite the fact it’s a gesture which, thanks to its provenance, is about as intrinsically Kiwi as it’s possible to get without foraging for insects in the undergrowth using one’s nose at night time – that many of the same people so outraged about somebody daring to turn down a handshake would nevertheless kick up a huge degree of fuss if somebody Hongi’d them without permission.

Perhaps, for some of them, offence would be taken even if they were ASKED first.

And this is without getting into the speculation as to whether these umbrageous types would be quite so keen to extend their “WHEN IN ROME” dictums to encompass, say, men kissing each other as a customary form of greeting in much of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.

In any case, some of the defenders of the iron grip of the handshake custom upon us in EVERY conceivable meeting situation, have sought to make this all an issue about “Values”.

Claiming, as yon academic presumably had in mind at the time, that Western Values and/or Western Civilization At Large are somehow imperilled, marginalized, and eroded via somebody choosing not to reciprocate with one frankly quite incidental custom drawn from same.

I cannot help but ponder just how weak a civilization or an ethos must be if something as incredibly minor and passe as the lack of a handshake can apparently seriously imperil it, but I digress.

Among the general corpus of “Western Values” are customarily included things like a certain degree of individual sovereignty [often part and parcel with particular understandings around the idea of ‘personal space’ , a ‘private sphere’, and ‘liberty’]; as well as, these days at least, a general acceptance that women aren’t property, objects, or otherwise the mere chattels of the nearest manfolk in a position of authority.

An attempt to *force* a woman to violate *her own* chosen and ascribed to value-set [in this case, religious ones of a particular flavouring], suborn her will to that of hte local man with a title, and meticulously brow-beat her via quasi-legalistic bureaucratic processes when she STILL refuses to submit to him… well … you CAN argue those’re some Western Values in practice.

Now, I suppose the conventional wisdom of Western politics in this age is that to engage upon the surface in some modicum of the religious mores of another culture, another community of faith represents “tolerance”, acceptance, and understanding.

Perhaps it does. And certainly, it is a positive thing for our elected leaders and other representatives to be more broadly ‘culturally literate’ than their forebears, with an ability to engage with people of different backgrounds and theologies especially relevant considering the much less homogenous or monolithic nature of our contemporary societies.

But I must confess myself somewhat uneasy to see someone ‘going through the motions’ [literally, in terms of the hand-gestures and donning of certain garmentry, as it happens] of an expression of faith that is not their own, either as part of a general “do as those around me are doing” [and subject to changing dependent upon who’s “around” at the time], or part and parcel of a specific “outreach” programmme.

It is something oft-forgotten these days, that Religion is not simply a bunch of disparate ‘funny traditions’ of half-understood and much-misremembered vague and quasi-import attached to some Cool Stories from the relevant Mythology [Mythos, but I digress].

Instead, it represents – to both the individual and the community – some of the most deeply held and important beliefs (presuming you choose to subscribe to it, of course, rather than having some secular creed(s) in its place) about values, the world, and our place both within and in relation to both.

It is, in a word, quite literally “Sacred”.

So the idea that one can, without breaking a sweat or pausing for consideration, simply don and discard the outward forms of religious adherence in a manner akin to a corsage at a dance or something, is arguably anathema to it. In fact, at the more extreme end, the “a-word” for it would be “apostasy”. Although I’m not seeking to levie that particular charge in Trudeau’s direction, as it would require actual religious adherence in the first instance which is then abandoned to do so.

To be clear about this – there is nothing wrong with Trudeau seeking greater engagement with Canada’s various Indian communities. [Although the potential risk of providing some tacit support for Khalistan movement is something that must be taken into consideration here, given some of the vectors chosen]

But I am not so wild about religious mores being trotted out for photoshoots by those who do not earnestly believe in them; and I am still less eager when it comes to picking and choosing just *which* religious tropes one is keen to display from one corpus or another on a day-to-day basis in-line with the changing vicissitudes of the polls or whatever.

I can understand – and, indeed, in point of fact, empathize rather strongly – with the notion of taking an active interest in ‘comparative theology’, comparative mythology, and all the rest of it. It’s something I do myself, and it is a point of genuine pleasure and value to be able to discuss these things with a certain degree of aptitude and competency with, say, the Rev. Rolinson with some degree of fluency. [We’re *slowly* working on upskilling him with *our* theology, at the same time]

Yet I do not ‘trust’ a politician, or a celebrity [insofar as the two are distinguishable today] or anyone else for that matter who appears to flit between the barest reaches of ‘Traditions’, on a day to day basis.

To me, it does not seem to show someone who is “more engaged” with more people.

It simply shows someone who appears keen to display ‘quick and easy’ attempts at LOOKING “engaged” without necessarily seeking to put in the actual work to either integrate into a community or demonstrate genuine solidarity/empathy from without.

Now perhaps I have been too swift to judge in Mr Trudeau’s case, and upon further reading it shall turn out that he’s actually an avid student of the Dharmic religions who’s long had a grasp of India and Indian cultures.

If this is the case, and I have unfairly lumped him in with a number of other Anglosphere politicians who *don’t* have these sorts of things … then I truly and unreservedly apologize to him.

But even if it does not apply to Trudeau specifically, I still feel my point stands.

Religion is not a costume (although dependent upon your confessional sympathies, it may well feature one).

They are deeply held, essence-ial elements of who and what we are. Not to be taken lightly or insincerely in pursuit of temporal advantages in the psephological or corporate realms.

And from my perspective at least, it is difficult indeed to find myself more “trusting” of an individual who would appear to display otherwise via their conduct – treating those deep and oft-eternal elements as light and fleeting photographical fancies.

It is one thing to show respect.

It is quite another to pantomime.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/02/26/on-trudeaus-indian-posturing/feed/8On English’s Billexit And Why This Means National Is In Trouble For 2020https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/02/14/on-englishs-billexit-and-why-this-means-national-is-in-trouble-for-2020/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/02/14/on-englishs-billexit-and-why-this-means-national-is-in-trouble-for-2020/#commentsTue, 13 Feb 2018 19:42:02 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=97147

I’m frankly a bit puzzled when it comes to yesterday’s shock political news, and for one simple reason:

Contrary to what a number of people are saying (particularly the “SECOND ELECTION LOST IN A ROW” style of comments) – Bill English leaving the National Party Leadership and Parliament may not actually help contribute to a National-led government in 2020.

Why?

First up, it’s hard to see National actually improving its performance from Election Night. Their failures in the weeks after were those of negotiation [and, arguably, the fruit of ‘dirty tricks’ played *during* the campaign – the architects of which are all still around] rather than vote-garnering [they actually *increased* their number of votes over 2014].

As applies 2020, this therefore illuminates two prospective pathways to victory. The first of which, being somehow managing to lure one or the other of Labour’s C&S partners away through honeyed words and Ministerial portfolios, thus denying Labour the numbers to form a Government – because National’s doing so instead.

And already, we have a bit of an issue here. Insofar as it is difficult to see who National would be able to elevate from its Caucus to the top job who would be better equipped to negotiate with New Zealand First than English. Although a potential counter-argument would be if National somehow managed to find both a figure and sufficient motivation for attempting to negotiate with the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand instead. Which is, for any number of reasons, pretty seriously unlikely – but given English himself was prepared to extend the relative olive-branch of not smashing the Greens in the face with a stick after Election Night 2017 by leaving the door open to a call from James Shaw … perhaps in two and a half years’ time things might be different on one or both sides.

The second pathway is built around National increasing its share of the vote to the point at which a Labour-led Government becomes non-viable – either through something like NZF exiting Parliament altogether, and/or through National gaining votes, and/or through National somehow winding up in the same position they were in on Election Night 2014 [i.e. before the Specials and such came in] of being able to govern alone if they so chose.

This is, if anything, an arguably *more* difficult scenario now that Bill’s gone.

Because while English definitely seemed to lack a bit of lustre during his head-on engagements with Jacinda on the campaign trail last year, there is no denying that he quite successfully reached out to a reasonably broad portion of New Zealand. Not as a “charismatic” frontman [as people for some inexplicable reason seem to brand his predecessor, Key]; but as a “safe pair of hands” to the older demographics of potential swing-voters who’ve got mortgages and are anemic about the notion of financial shocks to their (credit) system.

National can either seek to find someone to replace that kind of cred – which will likely be something of an exercise in futility, as nobody else in their Caucus can actually front up and point to a record [however fudged and airbrushed and PR, SPIN, and DISTORT-ed] as Finance Minister that seemingly screams “steady as she goes” in the way that English could – or they can attempt to do something different.

Which quite likely means attempting to find an “Anti-Jacinda” to try and hew into Labour’s recently bolstered vote. Which is … not likely to be their most successful plan, if indeed they do attempt it. Many of Labour’s ‘new’ votes at the last Election came from people who didn’t vote in 2014. These people [and I don’t mean people who were under 18 at the time] are rather unlikely to wind up supporting National, for any number of obvious reasons. And many more of those aforementioned ‘new’ voters were either Greens or NZF supporters at previous Elections who’d decided to back Labour this time instead – so once again, a very tough prospect to drag over to the Right.

Meanwhile, for those ‘swing voters’ who DID previously support National, yet went over to Labour this time around – much of their decision-making appears to have been predicated upon the idea that National over the previous 9 years had become stale and wrongheaded in its governance. I’m not sure how a mere 3 years on, with a substantively similar Caucus and Front Bench, National will be able to meaningfully dispel that impression and convince people that putting them *back* in won’t ultimately result in a slightly rebranded “more of the same”.

But hey, maybe somebody’ll decide that Nikki Kaye vs Jacinda Ardern had one outcome [repeatedly] in Auckland Central over elections previous and hope against hope that it’ll work out similarly on the national stage.

It’s also worth noting that English’s elevation to Leader of National may very well have been responsible for some of New Zealand First’s flagging fortunes – “conservatives” suddenly having a reason to go back to the darker shade of Blue with a Capital C Catholic on a lot of social policy at the helm of the party and nation. English in Exile may therefore give New Zealand First a bit of a boost and help ensure it makes it over the 5% threshold as the “only” “conservative” voice left in Parliament [notwithstanding an older generation of National MPs who may see their own spate of retirements later in the Term]; thus further frustrating any National plans of denying Labour a support-partner or attempting to govern alone [something that will be much easier with the redistribution of seats that would take place if NZF had a large ‘wasted vote’].

In any case, with the singular exception of the New Zealand Labour Party in the past year … voters don’t like the appearance of instability generated by changing leaders in swift succession. The National Party isn’t *quite* at Labour-from-2008-2018 [more especially, 2011-2014] territory *just* yet, but it is worth noting that they’ll have had three leaders within the relatively short space of a year and a half.

If they get the *right* leader, that’s one thing. but I would be entirely unsurprised if infighting occurred and started leaching out into the public domain regardless. Particularly once Shadow-Cabinet appointments and suchlike are underway and people start “missing out”.

With an additional possibility that we may see something akin to what happened with Labour under Cunliffe – wherein a whole lot of Nats decide to put their focus on self-preservation rather than the previous and arguably quite remarkable interior discipline that National has managed to maintain for much of the last 9 years; motivated in no small part by scorn for the “wrong” figure in their individual eyes now being In Charge.

There’s also an interesting rhetorical calculation as to which ‘message’ would be better for National against the incumbent first-term Labour-NZF-(Greens) Government.

That of “things were better under the previous Government – hence why you voted for us”; or “things WILL be better under our NEXT Government”.

Obviously, National’s next choice of leader will have a considerable influence on how all of this plays out. I mean, the existence of an #ABC faction as applies Judith Collins means that despite her demonstrable ability at channelling and playing upon “the fears & prejudices of the aspirational lower middle class”, if she somehow manages to win the position, there’s a very real chance of her tenure not leading back into the Beehive.

Meanwhile, several of the other ‘clear contenders’ so to speak either run the risk of being perceived as too close to potentially less than optimal parts of the previous Government [Nick Smith on housing and the environment, for instance; or Paua Bennett on welfare [as in, as Minister, not her previous source of income] and ‘dirty tricks’], or as questionably relatable to the broader New Zealand electorate – especially in comparison to Ardern [e.g. Simon Bridges, who gives off a compelling impression that he’s finding his human suit to be a bit itchy form time to time].

In any case, the arguable strength, discipline, and cohesiveness with which the previous leadership transition from Key to English was carried out, was impressive.

I will be inordinately surprised if National manages to accomplish the same feat for a second time running.

I was thinking about the recent rumblings in the National Party towards their ‘leadership team’, and something didn’t quite add up.

The main reasons why you’ll see challenges mounted towards a Party’s Leader and Deputy is pretty simple – the Party either did poorly at the last Election … or looks set to do poorly at the next one. There’s a subsidiary reason-set concerned with the personalities occupying those positions facing immediate and seemingly insurmountable scandals (perhaps one might say this is what happened to Don Brash during the 2005-2008 Term) – but those tend to tie themselves right back to that second reason.

In National’s case, it’s doubtful whether either reason is the case.

It’s true to state that they did not “win” the 2017 General Election – insofar as they are not, presently, the bedrock of a Governing Coalition.

But the plain fact is that they did not exactly “lose” support themselves last year, except in purely percentage terms. In actuality, their number of votes went *up* on 2014, and only shrank as a proportion of the overall vote due to increased turnout.

So while ordinarily, there would arguably be a prima facie case for a defeated National Party to be looking around for a head to fall upon the chopping-block following an unsuccessful Election campaign … I’m not quite sure that a reasonable observer would agree that it needs to be the case here. After all, Bill English did *well* better than many people expected; and the “loss”, in practical terms took place at the Coalition Negotiation stage rather than at the ballot-box or on Election Night proper.

Certainly, a *certain former Minister* who was doing a lot of campaign managing for National over the last few years, *does* look like a potentially viable target for National internal scorn right now – but he is neither Bill English nor Paula Bennett, and therefore a leadership challenge would not directly put paid to him.

Now this leads me on to the *second* frequent-potential-reason-for-an-attempted Coup – namely, worried MPs freaking out that they’re not in a viable position to win the next Election.

And for various reasons, I genuinely don’t think that many Nats are in *that* basket either.

The main reason we can tell this, I think, is that if they *were* we’d probably have started to see a few List MPs either resign or begin making noises about doing so. Either because they think there’s something better they can be doing now and they want to go out before National slides any further … or because they don’t think that waiting around for three years will actually get them their old jobs and perks back.

Or, from a less ‘voluntary’/’altruistic’ perspective .. because they’ve been low-key *forced out* in order to make way for “rejuvenation” by bringing in new Backbenchers and promoting upwards on the List into Shadow Cabinet and the like from the extant crop.

The fact that we *haven’t* seen this indicates – to me at least – that there’s a fairly high level of confidence in the National Party that they won’t do significantly *worse* in 2020 than they did in 2017, and with other changes in the psephological terrain … may even find themselves back in Pole Position once more.

National’s polling in the most recent Reid Research remaining steady [in fact, going *up* by 0.1%] despite Labour’s climb would further serve to underpin this.

Although against this, I suppose, you have Bill English [never the most charismatic of operators] sliding back into the mid-twenties for Preferred Prime Minister – but again, this was never a particular strength of his, and would *always* have happened against Ardern.

Anyway, that brings me to the crux of the matter.

The problem for whichever Nats are attempting to spread rumours of discontent about English/Bennett … is NOT likely to be as retribution for a poor electoral performance last year – because there wasn’t one. It’s ALSO not likely to be a pre-emptive strike and ‘clearing of house’ to set up for frantic efforts to improve the party’s prospects in 2020 – because that arguably isn’t necessary. Bill English connects with the right National voter demographics, and will probably connect with even more if NZF’s brief run at the “Center-Right” bloc of support continues to unravel with its present speed.

This leaves the somewhat rare potential reasoning for a coup of personal animosity between one or more of the leadership team and one or more of the factions within National itself.

And here, I think, we have struck paydirt.

I doubt it will be Bill English, either – particularly after some of the stuff that has apparently come out about Paula Bennett [c.f her demand for ‘skits’ in Caucus meetings etc.]

If Bill is being threatened as well, despite his positive results [relatively speaking] a few months ago, then it suggests that somebody’s had a quiet word to him about escalating discontentment about Bennett, and he’s made the decision to stand by his Deputy even despite the criticism.

Thus implicitly creating a scenario wherein National is effectively presented with the choice of supporting Bill and therefore *also* Bennett … or potentially seeing how they feel about getting rid of both simultaneously.

Compromise options in the middle are, as ever, a potential medium-grade possibility (you don’t get far in National without at least a *certain* facility at going back on previously held positions in pursuit of personal advancement or the maintenance of one’s loftily-held position, after all).

But with the possibility of *making things worse* for National both internally and at the next Election by getting rid of English/Bennett no doubt *also* weighing upon the average Nat MP’s mind … perhaps no serious moves will be undertaken just yet, pending any marked scandal or poll deterioration over the coming Term.

And further complicating the issue will be the paucity of potential replacements for Bill that National can conceivably unite around – with Judith Collins predictably having her own iteration of the #ABC political phenomenon, for a start; Simon Bridges perhaps being too unctuous as well as arguably too young [I somehow doubt whether National likes the optics on attempting to get a relatively young leader in as much as Labour did], and Nikki Kaye arguably likewise [and, for that matter, a metropolitan Aucklander].

Still, I have no doubt that Bennett will have gotten both a shock and a sudden rage-spike at what’s happened here. Somebody on one of my threads referred to her as a “sociopathic kindergarten teacher”; and I’ve previously seen memery to the effect of a Dolores Umbridge kinda characterization.

She’ll presumably become ever-more-insufferable as a result of somebody attempting a nuking-by-media against her; which may yet further inflame internal tensions within National, and might hopefully contribute more towards her eventual ouster.

As they say … couldn’t have happened to a nastier person.

—

Also, as a side-note/addendum about this business of Bennett wanting “skits” performed at National Party Caucus meetings …

I did wonder whether the logical takeaway about this was …

… that she’s actually acutely aware that the average Nat Minister isn’t sharp enough to actually *get* anything you present to them, unless it’s in a suitably over-dramatic, live-acted-out-in-front-of-you form.

Why do we have a housing crisis? Because nobody bothered to get a bunch of junior Nat back-benchers, dress them up as bricks-and-mortar and/or overseas investors or something, and demonstrate how “affordability” works with camp dialogue in front of Nick Smith.

Why do we have a river-is-full-of-effluent crisis? Because nobody bothered to get a bunch of junior Nat back-benchers, dress ’em up as a river, and then uh … well, I’m sure imaginations would have been deployed to demonstrate (again, for Nick Smith) the next part.

Part of me, when I first read about this, was rather aghast that my mental characterization of Paula Bennett as the sort of overbearing INFANTILIZER OF ALL SHE SURVEYS actually *did* seem to be entirely, 100% accurate

But like I say. I’m now wondering whether she was just simply aware of the best method to get results out of some of her even *more* lackluster colleagues.

Remember back on the campaign when retired Cricketer Mark Richardson [who for some reason has a morning slot to opine upon the political happenings of the day, courtesy of The A.M. Show] landed himself in hot water for asking Jacinda Ardern, some seven hours into her position as Labour Leader, whether she’d considered she might need maternity leave if she wound up successfully becoming PM?

Pepperidge Farm remembers – and so too, did a blustering battalion of bloviating brutes all across the talkback, twitter, and other social media spheres today; who seized upon Jacinda Ardern’s recent announcement that she’ll be a mother by the end of the year, as evidence that Mr Richardson’s comments were not, in point of fact, some sort of egregious faux-pas endemic of the sorts of discrimination women can face in the workplace … and instead merely sensible scrutiny of somebody applying for our country’s ‘top job’.

Now, as it happens, I don’t think many of the people who were talking up this issue on the campaign-trail were doing so in what we might term “good faith”. Sure, it’s possible that concerns about the PM taking a few weeks or months off *may* have been in the minds of some of them. But if you were a Nat attacking Jacinda and by extension Labour over this issue, I’d almost be prepared to bet that at some point previous in your political pontifications, you’d *also* attacked Jacinda Ardern and/or Helen Clark for being childless. Or, for that matter, that you’ve put forward vocal protestations about women who’re unemployed becoming mothers and such.

Gosh, for that kinda demographic, the specter of a woman having a child out of wedlock whilst drawing tens of thousands of dollars a year from the state in income must cause absolute paroxysms of political pyroclasmis!

Personally, I feel like the underlying motivation for some of these viewpoints has less to do with workplace issues per se, and is more based upon generic opposition to Labour and/or the substantive idea of women in politics. The fact that a number of the “arguments” that have been brought up in reference to Ardern “needing” to “stand down” as a result of this news, are in fact almost 1:1 those historically advanced against women first voting [this is how old they are] and then holding office, may well appear to substantiate this.

But I digress.

What gets me about a lot of the “opposition” to Jacinda continuing as PM following today’s announcement is just how utterly bereft of context it is.

Let me explain.

Taking at face value the aforementioned demands for Ardern’s resignation or stepping back, it seems like there’s two general areas of concern – that she’ll wind up having to take time off from official duties due to the pregnancy [a span of about six weeks, according to her own forward planning]; and/or that she’ll have impaired performance as PM for a longer period before/during/after alongside this.

If you’re really interested in this, there’s no doubt a whole boatload of science out there to help you come to the conclusion that these concerns are pretty lacking in merit.

But far be it from me to attempt to mansplain female reproductive biology; so I’ll instead stick to what I know – which is political history.

Ready? Here we go!

For most of the previous nine years, we had a Prime Minister who was pretty widely regarded as either i) a “do-nothing”, and/or ii) a “do-nothing of any substance/worth”. I don’t think this is an entirely unfair perception – much of what we can actually look back upon from the previous National administration appears to have either been the results of Cabinet in a collective, or individual Ministers and Members having ideas. About the only things I can think of off-hand that John Key has personally taken credit for … were a job-summit a few months into his administration, and making New Zealand an international laughing-stock on at least three occasions with his (personal) antics. [There was also an assurance about resigning if it turned out that New Zealanders were under mass surveillance … but despite the fact he eventually *did* resign, that didn’t appear to have too much to do with said pledge]

Prior to that, we have had some of our *greatest* Prime Ministers carrying out their duties from sick-beds, in hospital, and even upon their death-beds. Names like Michael Joseph Savage and Norman Kirk, for instance.

Arguments that Ardern therefore ought to step down from her post on the basis of an impending future medical/maternal situation, don’t really seem to stack up. And for a number of reasons.

We have survived situations wherein the Prime Minister has taken on ‘light-duties’ for a few weeks or even months at a time beforehand. We have even, as applies the Prime Minister before last, survived situations wherein the office has been held by one of “reduced competency” for entirely less worthwhile reasons than impending motherhood.

We have also managed to survive, potentially against the odds, a bewildering brocade of (male) politicians who were subject to frequent and even occasionally quite (literally) violent mood-swings of a self-inflicted nature due to their alcohol consumption/alcoholism. Now, I do not mean in any way to attempt to equivalize being severely drunk and being pregnant [occasional bouts of vomiting potentially notwithstanding] – just simply to note that many of the people presently upbraiding Ardern over her pregnancy presumably had little to no issue in practice with an older generation of politicians being *ahem* drunk in charge of a country – and thus “emotionally volatile”, etc. etc. [again, lest there be any doubt – I am NOT saying that there’s serious comparison to be made between a serially drunk person and a pregnant woman in terms of mindset, actions or whatever. Only that the “idea” of the latter being “volatile”, “hormonal” or whatever is apparently much more intolerable to some than the *reality* of what was, up until very very recently regarded as entirely normal Parliamentarian behavior].

Many of the concerns about Ardern remaining PM through the term of her pregnancy and beyond are *particularly* unfounded, on grounds that it is not and has never been normal in our country for one single MP to be running the country singlehandedly. That is to say that – despite the occasional pretensions of the media during Campaign Season .. we are not in a Presidential system. Instead, we’re privileged enough to have an Executive comprised of *well* more than one person – an entire series of *teams* of Ministers both inside and outside of Cabinet, as well as a rather capable [allegedly] Deputy Prime Minister.

Or perhaps the PM’s critics have some dim inkling of this and are experiencing horror flash-backs to the mid-1980s – a period wherein a PM of inarguably “reduced competency” let himself be driven around in the proverbial political golf-cart by a nefarious underling with an agenda.

Which just leads me to wonder whether what’s actually happening is the Talkback Brigade expressing their abject panic at the idea of Jacinda Ardern turning into David Lange simply by virtue of an expanding waistline – thus leaving all *actual* decision-making in the hands of her Deputy Prime Minister and his ‘hidden agenda’.

Waitaminute …

Anyway, as applies the period *after* she ‘officially’ becomes a Mother some time in mid-June, I’m even *more* perplexed. It’s apparently not enough for assurances to be issued that her partner will be taking over caregiving duties. The people who’ve spent much of the last six months wailing and whining about the looming-impending “NANNY STATE” somehow don’t seem to realize that even the PM is capable of hiring a “nanny”.

Now at this point, I’d customarily reach for International Examples. However the slight issue here is that there’s only really two that are being brought up for Heads of Government having kids while in office.

One being former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto – who was reportedly back on the job the very next day after giving birth; and the other, Britain’s Tony Blair. Although I’d hardly hold up the latter as being a positive example for a Labour leader to aspire to, for reasons that ought be both legion and blatantly obvious. [the idea of some NZ right-wingers wanting us to be *less* progressive than a majority-Muslim country that’s these days pretty much a failed state is, however, arguably rather amusing. Or at least it *would* be, if they weren’t serious…]

Either way, I do think it’s somewhat fair to state that we’re entering into ‘uncharted territory’ here; although opponents will no doubt attempt to direct our attention to the commentary of former Greens MP Holly Walker, concerning her decision to resign as an MP precisely because she didn’t feel capable of simultaneously being both a Mother and a Member of Parliament.

Not, of course, that I’m suggesting *any* politician *ever* should be taking inspiration from the career of Ruth Richardson [the second female MP to have a baby in our nation’s history] … but my issues with her being a mother to things while in office are restricted to things like the [perhaps unfortunately named for the purposes of this discussion] Mother of All Budgets – not her *actual* maternity which preceded it.

But to bring it back to both male politicians and the Prime Ministership for a second … as soon as I started sitting down to run back through the annals of our Heads of Government of yesteryear, something immediately became clear to me.

The “concerns” around Ardern’s ability and commitment to the job in the months to come can be considered [and basically dismissed] in isolation.

Yet the moment they’re considered in their *historical context*, we see that what’s actually going on here, is that some New Zealanders out there are actually afraid that our third female Prime Minister might become as lackluster and impotent in office as quite an array of the less-impressive tiers of the 37 men who’ve held the Premiership before her.

I’m something of an optimist, though [possibly in part thanks to personal experience viewing just how deftly my own mother managed to execute simultaneously being both mother and extraordinarily hard-/over-working familial breadwinner].

From where I’m sitting – even if some things *do* go awry in the medium-grade future [and here’s hoping they don’t] … it would be difficult indeed for the Ardern Administration to prove anywhere *near* as tawdry or as ineffectual on the Big Issues of the day as the near-Nine Long Years of John Key’s egregious misrule.

[Author’s Note: Due to some confusion derived from people not reading beyond the first few lines, it’s probably necessary to include a disclaimer at this point – I’m NOT defending Trump here. Read the whole thing before angrily writing in to suggest otherwise, please.]

Controversial Opinion: Trump’s rather .. pungent choice of phrasing aside, it’s really not that controversial to characterize Haiti as pretty wretched – a state that it’s been in for quite some decades now, along with [funnily enough] the vast majority of the Caribbean and neighbouring states, with the important exception of Cuba, for much of the past century.

But what makes Trump’s utterance controversial – again, other than the decidedly undiplomatic phrasing – is not so much what was said, but precisely who it was that was saying it.

The President of the United States of America.

Now, this is not about an issue of ‘decorum’ – so don’t get me wrong. Instead, it’s a frank question of culpability.

You see, if you look at those aforementioned armful of ‘basket-cases’ strewn across the Caribbean, and under broadly American suzerainty for the most part since the Monroe Doctrine was first promulgated – and with a considerable deepening of US ‘interference’ and neo-colonial ambitions over the course of the 20th Century – it becomes rather rapidly apparent that the two single-most important factors in these countries’ ongoing malaise are American “influence” [whether in the form of invasions, embargos, the doling out of weapons to bloodthirsty dictators with which to kill “communist” peasants who dare question corruption and iniquity in their homelands, economic dumping-actions, and the supporting of US corporate interests against domestic sovereignty and wellbeing, among many .. MANY other things] , and as an additional consideration, the repeated & pervasive efforts at enforcing neoliberal economic “reforms” onto these countries by Washington Consensus-inf(l)ected international bodies like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and other such [often heavily American dominated] institutions. [For a tangible case-study of this, perhaps examine exactly what happened to Jamaica when it adopted the strictures of a ‘structural readjustment’ package put forward by these organizations]

It is not coincidental, of course, that some of the principal beneficiaries of such economic hara-kiri tend to be those American corporate interests we seem to keep running into over the course of the Western Hemisphere’s sadly benighted history.

*Lovely* thing having a semi-literally captive market!

Now, the plain reality here is that America choosing to run these various countries as ersatz-“colonies” [i.e. with all of the economic-extraction value of the more traditional imperialism .. with very little of the actual state-building that tends to go with the more ‘hands on’ approach – unless it’s US companies over-charging to facilitate same] has been pretty great for a number of Americans and their corporate enterprises. I’m not entirely sure, for instance, how the United Fruit Company would have handled itself were it not for ‘little things’ like getting out of paying a legitimate tax-bill to the Government of Guatemala thanks to a CIA-organized coup against Jacobo Arbenz.

But at the same time, very *very* bad for the subject peoples who’re actually *living* in the neo-colonial ‘possessions’ in question. I mean, that point above about US material & financial support for murderously repressive dictators just because they happen to claim to be killing “Communists” [the quotation from Apocalypse Now about anybody who runs being a communist AND anybody who remains still being a ‘well-disciplined’ communist seems to be of direct application here] is not simply idle rhetoric.

Instead, it’s *literally* what happened with Haiti under the “Doc” regimes, amidst many and many other examples throughout the region.

Further, in those instances wherein the US *hasn’t* been backing a particular iron-fisted President-For-Life as its local semi-pliable puppet-regime, it has instead generally chosen to rather actively undermine democracies with a view to ensuring that no country in the area it considers its own “back yard” , is capable of putting together a Government with enough domestic clout, staying power, or longevity to actually mount serious challenge to US diktates and looting/profiteering.

It is plainly obvious that fostering a climate of serious political instability in these countries is not going to make for efficient, practicable Government – and that’s just the point.

Which, of course, means that in many instances wherein natural disaster or other challenging circumstances eventuate in these places, the responses are at best lackluster and at worst, actively harmful [not least because there’s often a curious scope for American corporate interests to be making a buck on hurricane or earthquake relief and reconstruction efforts]. [although again, with the notable exception of Cuba – for SOME REASON. Comparing the Cuban response to Hurricane Katrina with that of New Orleans is an interesting exercise, perhaps. Certainly there have been direct side-by-side comparisons of Cuba with the Dominican Republic which appear to suggest there are some distinct advantages – even *despite* the Embargo -to not being in the US orbit].

So all things considered, Trump – or anyone else seriously involved in US politics – expressing some sort of condemnatory surprise at the present state of Haiti , is perhaps rather akin to a Britisher or American airman going to Dresden in the late 1940s and being altogether taken aback that for some reason all the pre-modern architecture that they’d seen in travel-guides from some decades earlier no longer seemed to exist.

And while some might look in frank askance at me apparently expecting Trump to have some sort of cogency in his possible grasp of international affairs and political-economy/history … it is worth noting that on the campaign trail, Trump was quite vocal about how American interventions in countries like Iraq only seemed to make things worse – and, in point of fact, gave rise to ISIS.

And to be fair, the quotes of his own from the early 2000s he was citing, concerning the rolling of Saddam Hussein setting the stage for a vacuum that would inexoraby lead to horrors in his place … are genuine. Trump actually *did* say [and presumably, mean] those things.

So what is “controversial”, to my mind – is that the very same man who campaigned so actively on how damaging American empire-building could be in the Middle East … hasn’t seemingly made the connection to just how damaging American empire-building *has already been* for *quite some time now*, in the Caribbean and related areas.

But, a calculated [and probably outright ‘enforced’ ] public face of ‘ignorance’ appears to be part-and-parcel of both the applicants and the holders of high office in America these days.

So perhaps I should not find Trump’s failure to mention just *why* Haiti might be in such dire straits [along with many of its neighbours for much of recent history], to be in any way surprising.

But the rush to condemn Trump’s *particular* choice of verbiage in expressing this observation risks detracting from, distracting from, and obscuring the *vital* conversation about how these countries *got* this way in the first place … and the overarching role of US power-projection and corporate influence – often directly through the Executive Branch which Trump now sits at the head of – in making them so.

If Haiti is, indeed, a “shithole” … I can only surmise that it has been successive US governments and American-inflected international institutions & corporations that have been the laxative.

[Author’s Note: This piece originally appeared in print way back in August of 2016 as an edition of my Sex, Drugs & Electoral Rolls magazine column. It is reproduced here for TDB readers’ consumption in light of the recent upsurge over the last few days in media comment on the alleged mental health (or otherwise) of US President Donald Trump. ]

Earlier this week, I encountered a piece on the Washington Post which purported to attempt to explain the behavior, rhetoric and general political persona of one Donald Trump as being the result of a traumatic brain injury. This joins previous pieces from both the same outlet and others which have sought to psychoanalyze from behind a keyboard the man who could possibly be the next President, and explain away Trump’s eccentricities or extravigancies as being the result of one or more cohabiting personality disorders.

This matters. And not just because of the obvious potential impacts of associating all concussion sufferers – or a swathe of personality disorder people – with the onerous burden of political and temperamental association with Donald Trump.

The burden of stigma is something which just about everybody who’s a bit “not right in the head” for whatever reason comes into contact with eventually. It can lead to people eschewing seeking a proper diagnosis and treatment due to serious (and occasionally quite justified) concerns that having an official three-letter-acronym or whatever after their name on their medical file can detrimentally affect their future life-choices or career.

One area in which this is often particularly pronounced is in that field of human endeavour known as Politics.

The reasons for this ought to be plainly apparent.

People already presume that at least half their elected representatives are unofficial sociopaths anyway, so tend not to have any especial overwhelming desire to place anybody of more obviously questionable sanity or faculties anywhere near the levers of political power. This goes doubly so for a position – such as the one Trump’s vying for – wherein one of those levers comes in the form of a big red button capable of unleashing nuclear armageddon. (Although the fact that masses of voters in both the UK and US somewhat inexplicably chose to re-elect Tony Blair and George W. Bush respectively despite revelations that the voice of the divine was apparently directly dictating Atlanticist foreign policy decisions to each – in specia the impetus to invade a certain oil-rich Middle Eastern country … has me scratching my head. Not so much at the alleged sanity of these heads of government, but at their respective voter-bases in each country as well. Perhaps voters really ARE more afraid of the labels of mental illness than they are of the symptoms)

The issue with what is happening when journalists and columnists patently inaccurately “diagnose” in typeset Trump (and really, how on earth can you properly psychiatrically assess somebody from afar through media interviews and appearances while never being alone or perhaps even in the same room together) is that it makes it far harder for persons grappling with genuine mental illnesses or cerebral injuries to be taken seriously in public life.

We already, some decades ago, witnessed exactly what happens when a candidate for high office has their mental health history become a matter of public record. The brilliant young U.S. Senator Thomas Eagleton remains a cautionary tale. During the 1972 election buildup, Eagleton acquired the unenviable honour of holding perhaps the shortest Vice Presidential candidacy in American history at eighteen days. (I say “perhaps”, because earlier this year Ted Cruz’s VP pick Carly Fiorina managed to eclipse Eagleton’s record by holding the position for a mere week. Although she may potentially not count, as unlike Eagleton, she wasn’t actually on a major party ticket at that point – but rather only a presumptive in the unlikely situation that Cruz won the Republican nomination for President)

The reason why Eagleton found himself being dropped faster than high-explosive ordnance in the skies above Vietnam?

He’d suffered from periodic bouts of depression, and had previously been hospitalized for same. For this princely crime of having a psychiatric weakness which was readily exposable and exploitable by the Republican opposition (which, let’s remember, was also at that time in the business of breaking into political opponents’ psychiatrists’ offices in pursuit of potentially explodable dirt) … the Democratic establishment wound up putting severe pressure upon George McGovern to axe his running-mate.

McGovern initially declared that he backed Eagleton “one thousand percent” … then folded on him some time later. Regardless of a battery of opinion polling suggesting that the votes of a majority of Americans would remain unaffected by Eagleton’s mental health history, it seemed that a candidate with a prior record of mental illness was too fraught a possibility for the true decision-makers of the American electoral system to countenance.

But there’s an obvious difference between what was done to Eagleton and that which is happening today. In his case, he actually had the mental illness in question. Yet when it comes to more modern situations wherein allegations of mental impairment are used to attempt to damage or discredit a candidate, this doesn’t have to be the case. Instead, increasingly spurious and hackneyed conjecture from afar is deployed in a kind of baseless smear politics to attempt to put some distance between the hearts and minds of the electorate and the established public figure of a leader or politician. As an example, Vladimir Putin’s stirling realpolitik foreign policy and burnished tough-guy machismo attitude seem altogether less compelling when they’re thought to be the result of previously undiagnosed Autism – presumably explaining why a Pentagon report claiming exactly that was disseminated with such verve and vigour last year through the media at the height of the Donetsk crisis.

And while it might seem somewhat hard to muster up significant sympathy for men like Trump when they come under attack in this particular manner, spare a thought for the other candidates who’ve been swept up or outright disallowed on grounds of mental health issues – real or alleged. Actually-successful political figures like Abraham Lincoln with his depression, Winston Churchill with his bipolar disorder, as well as GandhiJi and Martin Luther King with their depression and suicidal ideation all managed to make an enduring mark upon this world – and in many cases arguably because of rather than inspite of their mental illnesses. By buying into the stigma surrounding the “potentially crazy” in public office, we deny ourselves access to incredible men of their impressive and self-evident caliber. Accusations like the ones presently being made against Trump, in other words, help to ensure that situations like Eagleton’s keep happening even today.

Because that’s the issue here. We like to think of ourselves as an enlightened, progressive and tolerant nation. In many respects, we probably are. Yet, as I can personally attest, there remains some considerable stigma attached towards people with mental health diagnoses pursuing serious careers in public life and office. I share diagnostic labels with several of the individuals mentioned in this piece (including the Bipolar (II) with which Senator Eagleton found himself afflicted). My medication regimen, amusingly, bore some close coterminity to that doled out to former U.S. Presidents Kennedy & Nixon (Even if I’m perhaps arguably more of a Marion Barry than either of them). One reason why I’m so incredibly open about all of this is because something similar to what was done to Thomas Eagleton once happened to me.

In the wake of this regrettable experience, I resolved to never let anyone be in a position to threaten to destroy me by disclosing information about my illnesses again. If the facts of my diagnoses were public knowledge, then this considerably reduced their potential for weaponization. People, in other words, would be more likely to see the real me – who I am, my record of service, and what I stand for – rather than the scary labels which might be insidiously deployed by rivals to act as a forcible, barbed barrier betwixt candidate and electorate.

The attacks which we’ve recently seen creeping back into our political press are the exact opposite of this in both spirit and effect. Not just because they’re more regularly carried out upon people who are, in all probability, presumably largely sane. But because they hinge around a virulent re-stigmatization of mental health issues rather than the relative merits of the politicians themselves.

Let us be clear about this: if you’re going to oppose Donald Trump or anyone else … please let it be for actual, tangible reasons rather than motivated by a media-fostered fear and loathing of the victims of mental illness.

There’s been quite a lot of mainstream media attention on the Bitcoin phenomenon recently. And while any amount of prognostication about whether its runaway increases in value represent a bubble can be found pretty much wherever one cares to look, there’s one aspect of the present Bitcoin boom that I think’s been somewhat under-discussed.

Namely, the way in which what we’re seeing right now is arguably a ‘glimpse into the future’.

And I don’t mean that in the simple sense of currency being decoupled from states [not least because recent developments in both Venezuela and Russia appear to suggest that you can perfectly viably run cryptocurrencies *as* a state .. and potentially have them actually ‘worth’ something, so to speak], nor the Cyberpunkishness of Darknet-denizens paying for elaborately staged murders or exceedingly cheap-for-quality hard-drug procurations.

Or, in other words, this is *exactly* how a pretty broad swathe of economic activity is going to go down over the next few decades. Human “operators” – capitalists, entrepreneurs, bourgeoiCPU, whatever … presiding over effectively automated workforces … who do ever more ‘stuff’ to generate a nominal economic return, that’s probably functionally pointless except insofar as it leads to some electrons indicating nominal value flowing around an increasingly digitized economy.

While, at the same time, draining ever further quotients of *real* resources out here in the non-cyber world [in this case, power-inputs – but no doubt all manner of other things, too, with time], to turn into largely imaginary [except for its somewhat subjectively agreed upon worth by an investor clade] ‘output’.

And meanwhile, you’ll have this ever-expanding class of regular ol’ Humans who’re basically ‘locked out’ of the whole thing, because they have neither the investment capital necessary to set up an operation of their own inside an increasingly hard-to-get-into market [I mean seriously – the level of coin, bit or otherwise, required to buy the hardware necessary to run a commercially viable mining rig is *ridiculous*, let alone the power-bills] , nor the technological skills to viably participate in this cyber-economy in other ways that’ll effectively allow them to make ends meet without assistance.

Personally, I think this whole setup is pretty fundamentally wasteful. Of a whole lot of things. Of the aforementioned physical resources, for a start [because seriously – you’re not producing anything tangible via bitcoin-mining except an ongoing arguable “bubble”]; but also of a huge swathe of yet-living human potential. Who are now, after all, just straight-up “surplus to requirements” in so many senses of the term.

But at the same time, it’s interesting to consider the way in which Bitcoin and its generation shows that straight-up a lot of the way in which wealth is derived in our economic system [whether present or [near-]future] doesn’t actually involve any real effort on the part of the presumptive main beneficiaries of same, other than the initial set-up of capital goods and *maybe* some wrangling of finance here and there.

It’s then ‘distributed’ out by the owners & employers of capital to various beneficiaries from same – whether investors, perhaps, or whatever workforce they’ve got under them in their operation, or whomever’s selling the next round of hardware, software, and other resource-inputs [like POWER! UNLIMITED POWER!] which might be needed to keep the whole thing operational in the short-to-medium-to-long term.

OF course, to bring this back to those aforementioned ‘surplus’ humans who aren’t capable of supporting this whole venture … that’s where things start to get a bit messy. Because these people have no share of the wealth that’s thusly generated, whilst it’s quite plausible that the rest of the economy which they might otherwise be employed in, is steadily atrophying and dying.

The impacts of having an ever larger swathe of your population with ever less money to spend is pretty obvious – both in economic terms; but also, dependent upon what welfare/redistributive apparatoi look like in your society, quite probably in human/humanitarian terms as well.

Where am I going with this?

Well, one of the main arguments people often have against a UBI, is that it entails giving people money for nothing. And that isn’t necessarily true imo , on grounds that a lot of people perform a helluvalot of unpaid and unrecognized labour *anyway* [think caregivers and homemakers], with a UBI arguably forming a partial recognition & remuneration for that. But I digress.

This misses the point that increasingly, on into the future, the way that income is derived for *just about everybody* outside of an ever-narrowing field of occupations, is going o be precisely that – income that is handed to them not through any actual hard work or effort on their part [again, barring initial set-up bist and pieces, for the most part] … but instead simply as a result of property rights [i.e. a return on increasingly entirely automated capital].

Phrased in these terms, then, when we talk about a UBI we are not simply suggesting that it’s one serious way by which an economy might avoid straight-up crash as a result of greater automation being a thing.

But rather, we are making the case that in a vaguely similar manner to the investor/’miner’ class, one’s right as a stakeholder in the Nation effectively entitles one to a comparable income-stream as a result of this and this potentially alone. [Whether one wishes to get into the extent to which individuals-as-citizens actually play a role in ‘investing’ in the Nation and supporting its existence through their ongoing civic behavior, or whathaveyou]

Or, to say it another way … if it is necessary for ongoing economic activity for people to be able to spend money, and we have effectively ‘decoupled’ the main source of income for a pretty important [economically] portion of society from actual effort [although ‘risk’ is perhaps another matter], then why do we not look more favourably upon continuing this ‘decoupling’ for the rest of society at large with a view to *ensuring* that people actually *do* have the ability to spend such money as may be necessary to keep the economy as a whole ticking over.

And I would rather suspect that the power-inputs and other such things hat would go into supporting a UBI scheme would be far an away less wasteful all-up than what we’re presently seeing with Bitcoin.

Now here’s a curious thing … right now the National Party is going absolutely hammer-and-tong attempting to attack the Labour Party’s Tax Working Group – for, among other things, the fact it’s set to be chaired by former Labour Finance Minister Sir Michael Cullen.

On the face of it, I suppose some might agree with the notion that appointing a well-respected linchpin of the previous Labour government might seem a *little* less than strictly impartial. But from where I’m sitting, Cullen’s record as Finance Minister [which, let’s remember, was sufficiently glowing that even *National* were singing his praises a few years ago – to the point of awarding him a Knighthood for “services to the state” in this role in 2012] probably means that the competency he brings to the role outweighs concerns he might be “partisan”.

And yet, such a potentially “bipartisan” approach from National is pretty inconsistent with their own previous record when it comes to Working Groups, Task Forces, and other such beasts of political-policy-oversight burden. I’ve literally lost count of the number of consultative bodies and even straight-up Inquiries that the National Party quite pointedly staffed the chairing of with their own people over the last nine years.
I mean, as an example of this – their placing of John Shewan at the head of the group convened to look into slash “dispel” the perception of New Zealand as a tax-haven, for instance, was quite directly a case of placing a fox in charge of a hen-house [Shewan’s private sector activities including quite a spate of tax-“consultancy” and linkages to a series of potentially dodgy international firms in this regard].

Or, worse, the series of appointments of [now Dame – guess why she got the gong, eh?] Paula Rebstock to head Inquiries into everything from Peter Dunne’s ‘alleged’ leaking of materials around the GCSB’s illegal conduct through to the ‘Leask’ affair concerning MFAT information being anonymously passed to the Labour Party.
In both of these above-cited cases, Rebstock basically managed to produce the “correct” outcome from the perspective of the Government of the day …. and was subsequently castigated by other authority-figures who wound up having to review her efforts for getting things wrong, or even presiding over outright illegal conduct.
Clearly, there is a bit of a risk when a Government appoints its own people to what’s supposed to be an impartial body – although I would respectfully contend that there’s quite a gulf of difference of both degree and kind between empowering a well-regarded former Finance Minister to preside over a taxation working group [which is, after all, an advisory organization set up entirely at the Government’s behest to provide potential detail and projections on its own policy] …. versus a Government ‘slotting in’ its own pugnaciously-construed “enforcer” to Inquiries into Government (mis)actions that are supposed to, by their very nature, be above the petty politics of the day.

As we can see … the results of National’s perfidy were for those aforementioned Inquiries to wind up repeatedly warred-over and iniquitously conducted bun-fights rather than august and impartially-regarded efforts at discerning the truth of important matters

I am sure there are a litany of other examples – but that’s just a few off the top of my head.

It appears at this point that the National Party knows they can’t meaningfully criticize the Tax Working Group on substance [after all – rightly or wrongly, the only thing we know at this stage about their prospective output are a list of the things the Labour Party have pre-emptively ruled *out* of consideration] … and so are instead resorting to that old favourite of theirs, going for the man – the personality – instead.

And, as is frequently the case where National is concerned, criticizing the hell out of Labour et co for doing something that, arguably, they themselves regularly and relentlessly engaged in when in Government.

Although I maintain as I said at the outset of this piece, that it is difficult indeed to draw a meaningful comparison between the appointment of Sir Michael Cullen to the chairmanship of this Tax Working Group, and any of the previously-cited instances of National staffing legal proceedings or advisory panels with its own bully-boys and flunkies.

After all … given Sir Michael Cullen literally wound up being knighted in no small part for his sound economic management as the previous Labour Government’s Finance Minister, it would appear rather unquestionable – even by National, who knighted him, one presumes – that when it comes to these sorts of matters, Cullen (still) has a meaningful and informed contribution to make.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/11/27/its-not-hypocrisy-when-we-do-it-the-national-partys-all-out-attack-on-michael-cullen-chairing-labours-tax-working-group/feed/7Why New Zealand Is REALLY Under Pressure Over Russian Trade From Atlanticists With An Agendahttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/11/10/why-new-zealand-is-really-under-pressure-over-russian-trade-from-atlanticists-with-an-agenda/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/11/10/why-new-zealand-is-really-under-pressure-over-russian-trade-from-atlanticists-with-an-agenda/#commentsThu, 09 Nov 2017 20:59:39 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=94047

Well this is interesting, isn’t it. No sooner does New Zealand start talking openly about pursuing a trade policy that is more independent of the Atlanticist E.U.-American block, than the threats start being issued unto us by their diplomats and local mouthpieces; with pliant domestic (yet invariably foreign-owned) media haplessly buying into the hysteria.

If this were your only source of information on the subject, you could be forgiven for presuming that New Zealand’s push for closer economic relations with the Russian Federation was some sort of conspiratorial effort that had been a closely guarded secret – the result of clandestine influence-peddling by a Russian ambassador meeting with the man who’s now NZ’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister earlier this year.

And which is seemingly set to usher in a serious crisis for little old New Zealand as our more ‘traditional’ trade “partners” and “allies” gear up to turn their backs upon us as we shun their incipient “good-will”.

But all of this is so completely and utterly fictional I’m almost surprised it wasn’t accompanied by a breathless set of claims that Putin somehow *personally* hacked our recent Election. It’s simply that far fetched.

Let us examine the allegations being made here one by one – and in so doing help to shine a light on what’s REALLY going on here.

The first ‘odd contention’ in this article is that the trade-push is somehow an “unheralded policy” which was not talked about prior to the Election, and was largely unknown even as recently as last week – being sprung out in such a manner as to suggest something untoward or unpalatable was afoot.

This is manifestly false. New Zealand First has been continuously raising the serious issue of our country being locked out of one of the largest beef and dairy markets on Earth [heading for second largest and already second largest, respectively] over a pretty substantial swathe of the previous Parliamentary Term; issuing numerous press releases, asking Questions of the Government in Parliament, and engaging in other political efforts to try and get some traction of the issue for much of the last three years.

Indeed, I even wrote an article on exactly this matter some weeks ago – openly posing the question before the results of coalition negotiations were even a blip on the horizon, as to whether New Zealand First regardless of their choice of coalition partner [the more globalist-neoliberalist inclined National Party; or the somewhat better social-democratic-with-neoliberalist-characteristics Labour Party] might be able to effectively secure progress on this long-standing area of concern.

Or, in other words – if New Zealand “journalists” truly believe that this is an “unheralded policy”, it can only be because they have neglected to pay anything even loosely resembling proper attention to the course of Parliamentary politics in this country for the last three years and longer.

The second ‘big’ claim made in the article – on both an implicit and outright explicit level – is that the further pursuit of warmer economic relations with the Russian Federation will somehow be disastrous, as it risks imperiling our extant trade with the European Union.

And, to be sure, the figure of some twenty billion dollars per year in NZ-EU trade does sound mighty impressive as compared to the $417 million we did in 2016 with Russia.

Except let’s take a closer look at those figures. The first, of course, being that it’s hardly fair to compare our trade with a country we have foolishly been subjecting to substantial trade-sanctions for some years now [i.e. Russia] with a trading-bloc we’ve poured every possible effort into securing stronger economic interchange with pretty much for as long as I’ve been alive. If we HADN’T had Russia under sanction over this period, and had instead been more amicable to the aforementioned 2nd largest importer of dairy products [our key export, apparently] … I do not feel at all questionable in outright stating, we would most certainly be trading billions of dollars more in their direction.

Or, in other words – regardless of what the European Union thinks, we are very shortly set to deal directly with our largest constituent market over there WITHOUT the ongoing interference of Brussels or French farmers … and do so in such a manner that we will once again be gaining billions of dollars worth of trade in addition to what we already have in that direction.

Meanwhile, while the European Union can huff and puff and threaten all it likes that it will continue to defer New Zealand’s hoped-for Free Trade Deal with the E.U. – the plain fact of the matter is that they have done exactly this pantomime act of dragging their heals in response to New Zealand’s ongoing efforts to gain better access to their market for some decades now. And with ‘good’ [from their perspective, at least] reason.

Our agricultural produce is simply of such quality and low relative price that the extant suppliers of the domestic market they seek to protect from our superior output will NEVER concede to ‘going quietly’ on allowing our exports in unmolested. In exactly the same manner that America almost invariably balks at including agricultural produce in the various Free Trade instruments that it occasionally feigns interest in such as the T.P.P.A.

Or, phrased another way – the European Union had no interest in ‘playing nice’ with New Zealand on trade policy up until they became worried that they’d lose out due to both us and a key trading partner of everybody involved going elsewhere first.

I therefore take these posturing European Union diplomat statements about how they’ll view our efforts with Russia in a “very negative” light as the tantrums of a toddler-state conglomerate rather than a serious commentary about likely future prospects.

If the European Union never intended to give us a fair Free Trade Agreement, and particularly in a reasonable timescale – then we have lost absolutely nothing by pursuing better associations with other markets in possession of vastly more growth potential for us, in the mean-time.

And if they WERE serious about suddenly caving to inevitability as applies greater economic interchange with New Zealand – then this is a position they have had to be browbeaten into by a combination of one of their largest constituent markets going elsewhere, and New Zealand looking to join it.

Which means that our own movements toward warmer economic interplay with Russia will have a positive and spurring effect upon our trade relations with Europe as they bend over backwards to attempt to entice us ‘back’ into “their” sphere of influence/suzerainty with promises of shiny export-dollars.

To state it plainly – despite the rather undiplomatic rhetoric from E.U. Ambassador Bernard Savage [which was judged a sufficient faux-pas as to be being backed away from by the E.U. Embassy here later in the week], we here in New Zealand have almost certainly lost nothing as applies the E.U. from pursuing better relations with Russia – and instead, may yet gain, as a result, capaciously from them in this area through our subtle and canny approach to realpolitik on trade.

The third prong of this bizarre [yet in retrospect, entirely expectable] full-frontal fact-free assault upon New Zealand pursuing an independent foreign policy on the global, geopolitical stage comes from none other than the loudest NeoCon mouth-piece presently given air-time in our media and academic spheres today. A professor of International Relations at Auckland University by the name of Stephen Hoadley, whom I’ve formerly had the displeasure of being lectured by back when I was an UnderGrad at the same institution [as an aside, another of my former International Relations lecturers – Dr Jian Yang – is presently *also* coming to prominence as the ‘potential’ agent of a foreign power within our politics … leading me to question whether there’s a puppet-string hidden under seemingly every moss-encrusted rock one cares to turn over on the economic right of our politics these days].

He further absolutely recoils from the thought of anybody using the term “imperialism” to describe the modus operandi and ultimate goals of American actions on the international stage; instead insisting that “analysts” basically polymorph into (geo-)political PR spinners for the latter-day American Empire; lest people speaking frankly and accurately about the ambit of American policy trigger serious resistance to same.

Or, in other words, when it comes to the worth of Associate Professor Hoadley’s opinion on a matter of a country choosing to act in its own interest rather than towing the Atlanticist ‘party-line’ … anyone acquainted with the corpus of his work can immediately see that it is best understood as being printed on two-ply – and for the American sphincter.

His ‘concerns’ about us not standing in absolutely slavish ‘solidarity’ with “like minded Western countries” are pretty much exactly the same as the ones he (and others like him) put forward to attempt to push New Zealand into getting involved with various American military adventurism in the Middle East over the course of the last decade and a half. Their arguments have always been that it is apparently impossible for us to remain on amicable terms with other countries if we offer even the slightest bit of actual substantial criticism of their respective foreign policies; or refuse to “pay the price” of “friendship” by putting New Zealand bodies on the line in THEIR fights overseas.

There’s a term for the sort of sustained interaction wherein continued good-treatment is conditional upon the exchange of bodies and money … and it CERTAINLY isn’t “friendship”.

But did any of these ‘bleeding heart Neocons’ protest about New Zealand seeking closer economic relations with America at the very same time as the latter was engaged carrying out an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation?

Of course they didn’t!

Because their sentiments on these matters – in this case, their apparent trenchant objections to New Zealand chartering an independent course on matters economic – are not actually “ethically” based. Nor are they even, really, “economic”.

Rather, they are solely concerned with the great dance of Geopolitics. And in service of that agenda, men like Hoadley or this European Union Ambassador will deploy almost any form of rhetoric or other inducements in order to keep ‘their’ puppet-countries and client-states sitting on the “right” side of the table.

Still, it’s not like the forces arrayed against New Zealand pursuing an independent foreign policy and lucrative trade opportunities are exclusively external, either. As we can see from the article, our very own [Inter] National Party has also lined up to take pot-shots at our new Government’s incipient new direction.

To put it bluntly, there is simply no equivalency to be made between the NZF-Labour Government seeking a trade-deal with Russia … and the National Party who formed our previous Government outright baying to partake of an illegal war alongside the Americans – even if, as it now turns out, there was the potential inducement of a trade deal with the Americans on the table at the time.

Indeed, I read the situation entirely differently. Namely, that Winston – as arguably our best Foreign Minister in decades, during his previous tenure in the role – was keeping an ear to the ground and diligently fact-finding for his efforts in Parliament on trade policy, particularly as pertains Russia … whilst Brownlee, by not meeting on even a single occasion with the Russian Ambassador over the entire course of his time as Foreign Minister, was engaged in a SERIOUS dereliction of duty!

With that in mind, it is a shameful thing indeed that Brownlee has attempted to turn his laziness into an assumed “virtue” in this regard .

To sum up, then – it does indeed appear that there is something of a ‘shift in the wind’ in both New Zealand’s foreign policy, as well as the Geopolitical ‘game’ more generally. The trade winds are now blowing to the East, whilst naught but ‘hot air’ and the whiff of sulfur appears to emanate from the ‘Old Empires’ on either side of the Atlantic.

New Zealand has, for the longest time, attempted to maintain cordial relations with the European Union and America in the vaguest, vainest hopes that we might one day be able to be treated with fairness and dignity by either economic unit on matters of foreign and trade policy.

Thus far, our hopes have largely proven futile – and after some decades of waiting upon an improvement in either situation, it now appears that our national patience has worn seriously thin.

At the same time, we have found ourselves confronted with a serious opportunity in the form of a resurgently prominent Russia; and it would appear on the face of it that there are no onerous demands for our militarized loyalty or diplomatic posturing being placed upon us by this Great Power in exchange for trade. This is, obviously, in rather direct contrast to both the E.U. and the US – and *especially* the pair of them together.

The absolute furore from a number of quarters over the prospect that New Zealand might once again take back control of our own economic and geopolitical destiny … rather than endlessly sitting on the sidelines hoping against hope to be picked for fair play … is thus absolutely terrifying to the mandarins and the mouthpieces in each of the Atlanticist centers of power.

Because, put quite simply, it represents the tangible new reality that they are no longer in control of events and other places.

And that their time as would-be charlatan Chakravartins is rather swiftly drawing to a close.

Good Riddance. And disregard the shamelessly perfidious ‘talking heads’ who dare to say otherwise.

As we enter into the incoming Age of Multipolarity, New Zealand is already set to do very well by remaining *well* ahead of the curve.

You know, it is a peculiar thing to wake up to various people demanding the expulsion of an Iranian diplomat for remarks he made at a private gathering about the state of Israel.

I mean, correct me if I’m wrong about this … but it was not Iran which boldly threatened a state of war with our country only a few months ago, now, was it.

I have not viewed Secretary Ghahremani’s speech in its entirity, and am running off the quotes which have been extracted therefrom to bedeck the sensationalist Sunday newspapers all breathlessly seeking to cover this story.

But going off these, I can only ask where, exactly, it was that he erred?

Was it with the contention that Israel has been ‘fuelling terrorism’ in order to advance its geopolitical objectives? Surely not. After all, the Israelis themselves admitted to actively assisting Al-Nusra [better known as the local franchisee of Al-Qaeda operating in Syria]. Perhaps it was his comment that the state in question frequently attempts to “deceive the world” with the ever-widening gulf between its rhetoric of enthusiasm for peace and diplomacy … and a litany of transgressions even in recent times I hardly need to list for their familiarity.

Maybe there is objection to the Israeli state’s policy and impetus being designated “anti-human” … and yet it seems pretty plainly apparent that on everything from the [now thankfully officially discontinued] involuntary sterilization of its black citizenry through to the ongoing illegal blockades, incursions, detentions, airstrikes, etc. etc. etc. that it is rather avowedly anti *some* humans at the very least.

It is true that Secretary Ghahremani’s remarks may, in their now public disclosure, be regarded as “inflammatory”. But unless there is something significantly salacious in the rest of his speech that has as-yet gone unreported, I am not entirely sure I would suggest that anything he has said is manifestly counter-factual.

And we do enter into a rather .. odd situation if historical truths and contemporary realities are unable to be voiced because they may potentially be deemed “inflammatory”.

I mean, the pathway that takes us down, I might find myself subject to censure &amp; vilification for simply pointing out that the pattern of Israeli-Kiwi relations over the past two decades has been characterized by an ever-escalating series of incidences more befitting outright foes than nominal ‘friends’.

Or is it “inflammatory” to mention such things as the Israeli passport-harvesting for overseas espionage at the expense of people such as a profoundly disabled tetraplegic New Zealander; the alleged activities of similar personnel in Christchurch in 2011 with the target of our national policing computer-system; or even the not-quite-Declaration-of-War from the Netanyahu Government late last year.

In any case, I do not seek to support nor exculpate the remarks uttered by some of the other speakers Secretary Ghahrameni shared a stage with back in June. Those can be considered on their own relative merits [or lack thereof].

But it is not the accountant from Mt Albert, nor the visiting Cleric whom I am seeing the loudest calls for expulsion from our country in reference to.

Instead, these are being foisted in the direction of a diplomat clearly articulating the long-held position of his Government, on the occasion of a solemn commemoration and solidarity-extension to an oppressed and marginalized people.

With that in mind, I can only wonder whether the opprobium presently being heaped in Secretary Ghahremani’s direction has less to do with what he said .. and more to do with some people being profoundly uneasy with the progressive normalization of both our relations with Iran – as well as the escalatingly positive role that the Iranians have found themselves playing with regard to the broader security situation in the Middle East these past few years.

Who knows. “Haters”, as they say, “gonna hate”.

Although it would be a pretty unctuous & unfortunate situation if this man WERE to be banished from our country for speaking in support of a people we have previously pledged to help, his only ‘crime’ that’s thus far been made out in any detail, the remarks of some of those who happened to be in the room with him at the time.

[Author’s Note: this piece was originally prepared for an international audience; and is presented unaltered from its original form]

Late last month, New Zealanders went to the polls for our most recent General Election. The final results have just a few days ago been announced, and they place the nationalist New Zealand First party of Winston Peters in arguably the most powerful position – able to demand their price from either of the other ‘big two’ parties in exchange for their support in allowing a Government to be formed.

But what does this mean for Russia? And why should a mighty, slowly resurrecting Great Power be interested in the humdrum, run-of-the-mill conclusion to our most recent democratic process.

Well, for a start, New Zealand First has a solid record in recent years of advocating for closer economic links between our country and Russia. This may not sound like much given our relative size – but as pretty much the world’s leading producer of dairy products, and a foremost producer of other agricultural foodstuffs like beef, New Zealand is in a prime position to help fill the void left by the trade sanctions levied on Russia in recent years by Western governments.

Unfortunately, the previous [and now possibly outgoing, pending the result of coalition talks] National-led Government saw things differently; and was slavish in its adherence to both European Union embargos (despite not being anywhere near Europe either geographically or in terms of interests), as well as its preference for pursuing ‘white elephant’ economic engagement with the Americans and their cronies via mechanisms such as the TPPA rather than looking seriously at trade deals with Russia.

There is thus a strong potential that New Zealand First holding many if not all of the cards in this week’s Coalition negotiations to form our next Government might lead to a better and more pro-Russia fronting from New Zealand going forward; presuming that NZ First Leader Winston Peters continues to press these issues and others like them that he has rigorously campaigned on for the past few years.

Given Russia’s freshly renewed rise on the international stage, as well as her strong position as both a global ‘good citizen’ [as seen in, for instance, Syria], along with the strong potential for mutually beneficial economic links between our two countries – this is surely a development which ought be welcomed by all sides.

The days of the mutually-reinforcing Anglo-American dominance of New Zealand’s geopolitical positioning and economic destiny are coming to a close.

We can but hope that as applies trade and foreign policy, New Zealand’s incoming next Government adapts accordingly and in-line with New Zealand First’s previously announced thinking in this area.

Many moons ago – back when the notion of replacing Andrew Little with Jacinda Ardern was the sort of pie-in-the-sky idea dismissed by almost all serious commentators as almost assuredly fatal to both her party and her person, rather than some form of titanic/cthonic masterstroke capable of apparently singlehandedly reshaping the political landscape upon a whim – I sat down to pen a piece entitled “The Golden Path”.

The focus of this article was to be what I, and a number of others inside NZF, viewed as the ‘best’ course of action for the Party if we genuinely wished to survive the 2017 and 2020 General Elections and make it on to that mythical and much-hypothesized Life After Winston … without going the way of pretty much every other ‘smaller’ party over the course of the MMP age.

Foremost among the insights amidst said invective was the concept that in fairly direct contravention of what seemingly everybody else both inside the Party and out was saying about how to ensure NZF’s long-term survivability [i.e. shack up in coalition with one or other of the ‘major’ parties, pick up a few Ministerial portfolios, show the electorate how good we could do in Government, and then hope against all available evidence that this would somehow NOT lead to us collapsing towards either the end of the Term or the Government], if New Zealand First genuinely wished to maintain its existence – and, perhaps rather more aspirationally, its then-seeming-inexorable ascent towards displacing Labour for ‘major party’ status – that it absolutely HAD to avoid the temptations of the ‘baubles of office’, and REFRAIN from forming a coalition, confidence & supply deal, or other such arrangement with ANYBODY.

Be ‘Sinn Fein’, in other words – “For Ourselves Alone”.

Now, for a number of reasons, the original “Golden Path” article lies both unfinished and unpublished. And in any event, this is not necessarily a great tragedy. Events, as they often do in politics, wound up first overtaking and then considerably outpacing my own prognostications, rendering the strategem advanced within said document functionally moot.

After all, with the results of last month’s General Election as they are, except in the most plausibly impossible scenario of the Green Party choosing to support National into a 4th term or the much-vaunted “Grand Coalition” of Labour and National finally coming to fruition in eerie echo of 1996’s torrid possibilities … there is literally no way we get a Government here in New Zealand without New Zealand First’s say-so and involvement. Whether direct or otherwise.

Attempting to ‘abstain’ from proceedings in order to bide our time and build our strength, in other words … would most likely be a rather non-viable option.

Or would it …

You see, there’s this interesting concept which half the country seems freshly to have heard of and yet to properly get their collective head around.

That of the ‘cross-benches’.

Wherein, to put it bluntly, if it’s being done *properly* [i.e. not really what NZF did in 2005], it entails the cross-bencher MPs *abstaining* on Confidence &amp; Supply rather than entering into a C&amp;S Agreement, and voting issue-by-issue – including, potentially, on C&amp;S matters like particular tax increases or whathaveyou.

There are some serious risks, to be sure, inherent in such a position.

For one thing, you lose much of your ‘bargaining power’ with the larger party forming the hypothetical bedrock of the next Government [in this case, almost certainly National]. After all, all you’re effectively in a position to do is state that you’re allowing them a ‘free run’ [more or less] at being Government – and are rather limited in your ability to demand policy concessions, as well as ruling yourself almost definitely right out of contention for anything Ministerial [as while being a Minister Outside Cabinet is one thing … being a Minister Outside *Government* would uh … possibly be taking Winston’s known penchant for constitutional innovation straight out into the reality-bending. ‘Quantum’, you might say].

For another, it also carries with it many of the same foibles of actually opting to just outright support a Government of the blue stripe. In that many voters will nevertheless choose to blame you for making the government they DIDN’T want happen, regardless of the fact that you’re not *actively* supporting it in Parliament.

And for a third – presuming you elect *not* to abstain on C&S in a particular motion, in order to halt something you’re vehemently opposed to [say, the privatization of a major asset, for instance] … well, there is a very real risk, dependent upon the whims and whimsey of the Governor General of the day, that this might bring the entire Government down and force a new Election. [This literally happened in Australia in living memory]. At which point, most likely, your party finds itself broadsided from every direction as being responsible for the aforementioned early Election, and decimated at the polls both due to this reasoning and voters getting in behind the ‘big two’ to attempt to make sure that there’s more ‘sureity’ and no ‘hold-us-all-to-ransom’ ‘third party’ required for Government formation.

In other words, there runs a very real risk that such an arrangement’s likely and natural consequence would be to fundamentally damage MMP. More so than, arguably, our present four-party slash three-and-a-half-parties model suggests has happened already.

Yet at the same time, one might very feasibly argue that the risks inherent in actually SUPPORTING a Government on C&S or actively joining one in Coalition are not entirely dissimilar. NZF will still be blamed by a reasonable proportion of voters no matter WHICH way the Party sides; and runs the risk of looking even less independent and more slavishly devoted to bad ideas if it finds itself compelled by the terms of a C&S agreement to vote in favour of measures with which they fundamentally disagree [see, for instance, Winston’s support for the privatization of Auckland Airport in 1998], or if it alternatively winds up actively bringing down the Government rather than continue to support same.

With these facts in mind, it is perhaps arguable that the ‘wild card’ element opened up by not being bound to a C&S agreement’s terms – but instead having far greater freedom to stand and vote ‘issue by issue’ – affords a greater deterrent to the National Party [or whomever it might be] against their natural penchant towards putting forward avowedly neoliberal bad policy which NZF may both votally disagree with and actively vote against.

Perhaps.

Orrrrrrr, National takes the long view, effectively runs an inverse of something that happened in 2008 [wherein Winston did the full-on Dirty Harry “do you feel lucky, punk?” monologue at the Nats], sees NZF’s pistol-to-the-head-of-the-Prime Minister, and basically dares NZF to go through with it – on the implicit assumption that in the impending next early Election, they’ll be rid of that pesky Winston Peters bloke for good as his party is punished by voters for creating the entire situation through being principled. This, i suppose, we could call “taking the long view” – one of instead of fighting a raging forest-fire directly, simply waiting for it to naturally ‘burn itself out’.

An incredibly novel spin on all of this would be for NZF to agree to abstain on C&S in order to allow Labour to govern [i.e. pointedly refuse to give their backing to National via abstension or otherwise if they attempted to form a Government]… but alone, with the Greens supporting them on C&S yet remaining outside of a Coalition. It would be unlikely to work for any number of reasons, although remains a minorly intriguing thought-experiment.

Now as for why any of this matters … I still tend to believe that New Zealand First has an important and meaningful contribution to make to the future of our politics. That, in the words of that old song Winston kept quoting in earlier years – “the best is yet to come”. It is no coincidence that for a pretty broad swathe of our recent political history, NZF have been the sine qua non standard-bearers for the economic nationalism and emphasis upon self-determination which we are vitally going to need if we want to remain a viable nation-state on into the intermediate-distant future.

It is therefore arguably kinda important that NZ First not do what literally every other ‘minor’ party that has EVER gone into a coalition governance arrangement with one of the ‘big two’ [and National in particular, come to think of it] has done … and basically wind up imploding slash deliberately undermined and salami-tactics’d into the very edge of electoral oblivion very shortly forthwith.

I mean, if we look at the record – it’s pretty undeniable. How did New Zealand First faire in each of the 1999 and 2008 Elections? [Although admittedly 2008 was following a C&S agreement rather than a formal Coalition, and was arguably also the result of other confounding factors bearing the initials “OGG”] Or, for that matter, ACT in 2011, 2014, and 2017 following their 2008-2011 arrangement. Or the Maori Party in 2011, 2014, and 2017 after the same term working with National. Or United Future, whether as the United Party in 1999 after supporting National [not that there was to far for them to possibly decline – although their share of the list vote nearly halved, and it’s quite possible Dunne would not have managed to re-enter Parliament at that year’s Election had National not stood aside for him in Ohariu]; or as United Future in 2008 after supporting Labour, and again in a progressive slide unto the Abyss in pretty much every election since thanks at least partially to their support of National.

Oh, and for that matter – The Alliance party both imploding AND collapsing as a result of its relationship with Labour and the ‘gravitational’ pressures being exerted upon and within it due to the proximity of power (as well as *ahem* personality); with a similar, albeit slightly more drawn-out effect befalling its successor-party, the Progressive Coalition. One can even make the claim that the Green Party’s MoU support arrangement with the Labour Party has played a partial role in the former’s decline in this year’s General Election [albeit, as with NZF in 2008 – subject to an array of other confounding factors which may ameliorate and obscure this trend].

The long and the short of it is … yes, sure, the “Cross-Benches” option is HELLA risky.

But then, as far as I can see, so is getting ‘too close’ to either of the ‘major’ parties. And by “too close”, I perhaps mean “directly proximate to them at all”. I’m not sure that there is too much of a meaningful distinction in the minds of voters between “Coalition” and “Confidence & Supply Agreement Only”, after all, when it comes to psephological punishment, after all.

The choice between “Cross-Benches” and a more direct relationship, then, appears to be between something that’s yet to be really given a proper go [although one can argue that the Green Party’s choice to tacitly support Labour-NZ First in the first part of the 2005-2008 Parliamentary Term in this way means that there is both SOME precedence, as well as a pre-standing example of the party doing the abstention-supporting *not* then suffering in the polls at the next impending election for so doing – in fact, quite the opposite. They went *up*] … and something that’s been tried now well over a dozen times with the same – seemingly inevitable- result in literally each and EVERY occurrence upon which it’s been attempted.

Or, in other words … even though I’m basically propounding a completely hypothetical scenario here that I have little doubt Winston is not seriously considering for the reasons blatantly aforementioned [less power, less influence, less Office] … when stacked up against the potential [i.e. likely] alternatives and their ultimate eventual outcomes, it’s not *nearly* as irrational celestial-pastry as it might first have perhaps appeared.

Who knows how things will actually go down later this week. In a previous [never likely to see the light of day] draft of this article, I suggested that the best way to understand Winston and New Zealand First’s coalition positions was the skillful application of quantum physics. In specia, Winston as a sort of Schrodinger’s Cheshire Cat – leaving the external observer entirely unsure of what’s actually going on inside the box. [Although to quote the Cheshire Cat from the Disney production, if you’re not sure where you’re going, then it probably doesn’t matter which of the left path or the right you ultimately take…] And, for that matter, running a sort of Winstonberg Uncertainty Principle wherein one can know *either* his position on an affair or the general direction he’s taking but not both at once.

All of which, together, may already have lead to a situation wherein the regular understandings of ‘gravity’ [i.e. the relative strength of attraction between two objects – say political parties] find themselves subject to all manner of other considerations which render it no longer applicable. [Even ‘Entanglement’ perhaps being insufficient as a tool]

And which leaves us, to continue plumbing the absolute depths of what I remember from a youthful interest in certain fields of science, to a “Superposition” – that is to say, half-way between two other, otherwise arguably irreconcilable positions – as the most logical way to progress.

Will it work? Who knows.

Honestly? Who cares.

The course of New Zealand politics at this stage, is tantamount to a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and quite potentially signifying nothing.

Earlier in the week, Wairarapa Labour candidate Kieran McAnulty made some pretty stirling remarks about the problems of social housing and housing affordability at a local Meet The Candidates event. He’s quoted by the Wairarapa Times-Age as stating an intent to “prioritise” sorting the present situation wherein denizens of the local Trust House social housing scheme have to “spend a huge amount of their income just to pay the rent bill”.

Now on the face of it, that’s a pretty admirable commitment. And he’s absolutely right in his follow-up remarks about how the high cost of living in what’s supposed to be “affordable” housing for the less well-off has significant flow-on effects for the kids of tenants, and the wider community as well.

But, as ever in politics … we campaign in poetry, and we govern in prose.

After all – how can you trust a man who so righteously decries the overlevying of rents from those who can least afford it one minute … yet who’s serving on the Board of the very same entity he now claims is overcharging its tenants.

Surely the decent think to do would have been to front up, explain both yourself and your position on the corporate decision-making body responsible for the issue you’re now up in arms about, and then take it from there. Rather than grandstanding on the issue in a candidates’ meeting in a manner which appears deliberately calculated to make it seem like the whole thing’s the result of somebody else’s wrongdoing that McAnulty had no part in or accountability for.

Now if you’ve just joined us from somewhere outside the Wairarapa, a brief explanation is probably called for as to just what this trust is and why it’s supposed to exist in the first place.

We’ll leave aside the whole history of the thing for reasons of space. But suffice to say, the organization McAnulty is on the Board of is the direct result of an ordinary liquor licensing trust finding itself transformed rather rapidly into an organization dedicated to ‘picking up the pieces’ of National’s moronic bout of neoliberal economic “reform” in the mid-late 1990s.

One way by which it did that, was through moving to acquire the social housing stock in the area that National was attempting to fire-sale privatize in advance of the 1999 General Election. The idea was to minimize much of the harm associated with the Government’s flogging off these properties to their mates in the private sector, through having a local organization set up and run in the public interest take over the ownership of same and responsibility for renting them out to those in need.

That’s a pretty noble objective, if you ask me – and part of me would like to think that the absolutely bargain basement the Nats asked of the Trust for the (then) 541 houses in question [some 10.5 million dollars all up – an average price of about $19,408.50 apiece] was motivated by this consideration.

According to the Trust’s own history document, for the first few years after they took ownership of the houses, they roundly met this objective. They charged well below market-rate rents, and even managed to lower rents in some areas below where they’d been before the Trust took ownership.

However, in the last few years, something’s evidently changed; and despite the Trust’s assurances on their website that they’re still very much in the “affordable housing” business, it appears that they’ve now moved towards a somewhat different model of ‘service provision’. Indeed, McAnulty’s own campaign speech from two years ago – when he was running for a seat on a coterminous organization, from whence he’s made the leap to where he is today – makes it pretty clear that by 2015 at least, a profit was being turned from the Trust’s supposedly “social” housing stock. Interestingly, at that point McAnulty didn’t appear to have issue with the trust making money off the most vulnerable in his community, provided that the resultant cash was put back into other philanthropic ventures elsewhere.

Which brings us back to the present day – a situation wherein the Trust doing what McAnulty seemingly suggested was right and proper when he was running for a *different* office, has now thanks to his efforts [in possibly more than one sense of the word] become a minor election issue at local candidate forae.

To be fair to the Trust, it IS investing in new “affordable housing” to go alongside its extant stock of presently presumably less-affordable properties, with conversion efforts already underway to replace a larger three-bedroom house with a number of smaller one or two bedroom units, at a cost of $1.2 million. Money which may very well have come from the over-charged rents to other tenants that McAnulty has taken issue with recently.

So maybe, at some point in the next Parliamentary term, some eight lucky tenants will be able to enjoy [for the moment, anyway] low-rent accommodation in exactly the manner that Trust House was theoretically set up to provide.

That’s great, as a small start.

But in the mean-time, I really do think it’s on Kieran McAnulty to step up and explain to his neighbours and those considering a vote for him just what it is that he’s been doing prior to last Tuesday to try and lower rents for those living in his organization’s housing. If anything.

Or is the reason I can’t seem to find him discussing this issue in any of his many and various capacities and candidacies over the last few years before September because he only ‘discovered’ it was a problem when he found himself sharing a stage with folk who’d taken a much more substantial interest in it for a much greater period of time.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/09/17/does-labours-man-in-the-wairarapa-have-a-gaping-gulf-betwixt-rhetoric-and-reality/feed/5A “Rumour” For Ron Shows The Race Is On In The Wairarapahttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/09/10/a-rumour-for-ron-shows-the-race-is-on-in-the-wairarapa/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/09/10/a-rumour-for-ron-shows-the-race-is-on-in-the-wairarapa/#commentsSat, 09 Sep 2017 21:23:21 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=91870

The reaction to this article was surprisingly positive. People seemed to see sense in the arguments put forward; and even if they were ordinarily supporters of other parties, many folk appeared to straight-up agree that the only way to ouster National’s Alaistar Scott from the seat would be uniting behind Ron.

And then something interesting happened.

I got a lead on a major party poll that had just been done in the Wairarapa, and which basically confirmed what I’d been saying. It ranked the contenders for the seat both in terms of their support out there in the electorate (i.e. how many folk were likely to vote for them) – but also in terms of their ‘likeability’, relatability, recognizability and such.

The results showed Ron Mark clearly beating National’s Alaistar Scott – the incumbent – for likeability and recognizability. Which is entirely unsurprising, given one usually has to actually be out there in the electorate doing things for voters to get an idea of who you are – as Ron has been for awhile now. And, perhaps more to the point, the fact that Scott just plainly isn’t. In fact, he’s widely derided in beltway circles for preferring to spend his time inspecting the greens of the Lower Hutt Golf Course rather than attending to issues on his own patch of the Wairarapa. A handicap, so to speak, in both areas.

Perhaps a little more unexpected, however, were the figures for the more direct question about whom those surveyed were intending to vote for. In these, Scott was still ahead of Ron Mark – but only by a rather bare, skin-of-the-teeth margin. Which, given the traditionally strongly Blue nature of the seat, Scott’s advantage of incumbency, and National’s absolute earnestness to roll out the decidedly non-kosher long-term wooden wine-receptacle politics in the Regions this year, is quite remarkable.

After all – prior to this year’s Election, we have to go back to 2005 to find another instance of anybody being even vaguely close to beating the Nat candidate in the Wairarapa. And that was not long after the absolute nadir of National’s support nation-wide in 2002 (also the last time a non-National MP actually held the seat – fellow former Mayor of Carterton, Georgina Byer).

And while I’d certainly predicted Ron Mark would be in a position to take the seat by 2020, his acceleration to almost pole-position three years ahead of my own favourable predictions is a most welcome turn of events.

The 2017 electoral season, in other words, keeps throwing up surprises!

Now at this point, it’s probably worth putting forward a word on the provenance of this poll. In the best of journalistic tradition, I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say which of the major parties commissioned it – nor how its results wound up in my hands. To do so would be to likely give away my sources.

So suffice to say, at least one Major Party has every reason to be very, very scared right now down there in the Wairarapa.

And as for the other one … well, it is a sad reality that as nice a person as I’m sure he is, Labour’s Kieran McAnulty is simply not making a meaningful dent on National’s Alaistar Scott. In both of the areas of this poll – likeability/recognizability and electoral support – McAnulty was trailing a rather distant third behind both Ron Mark and Alaistar Scott.

It therefore seems quite clear to me that folk who wish to see the backside of Alaistar Scott in the Wairarapa – and here, I mean as it walks off into the middle distance, rather than being firmly fixed in a sedentary position when it comes to local issues – really do have only one option to vote for this Election. And that’s Ron Mark.

Because regardless of where you are on the political spectrum or whom you ordinarily support with your party vote, with the numbers stacking up the way they are now a vote for Ron Mark is a vote against National’s Alaistar Scott – while a vote for Labour’s Kieran McAnulty rather than Ron, is effectively a vote for National.

It might seem like a bit of an odd thing, insisting that a vote for the Labour candidate is in fact implicit support for the National incumbent, given our MMP electoral system. But MMP only means that you have a party vote which counts at the nation-wide level, in addition to your electorate vote.

It doesn’t somehow magically transmogrify the actual electorate contests themselves into a ‘proportional’ representation system. They remain, as they always have, an FPP competition.

That means that there’s one winner on the night – and often, they only get there as a result of ‘vote-splitting’ between the parties who are nominally opposed to that candidate. Consider Ohariu[/Belmont] for the last three elections. If the Greens hadn’t stood a candidate there, or if their supporters had decided to vote for the Labour candidate, then Peter Dunne would have been toast.

But up until this year, they didn’t – so Dunne managed to desperately cling on, despite consistently receiving less of the vote there than Labour and the Greens put together. A similar pattern has transpired for the last three elections in Auckland Central – wherein the Labour candidate would have easily trounced National’s Nikki Kaye were it not for a surprising number of Greens voters deciding to back Denise Roche in a pointless display of partisan loyalty rather than voting for Jacinda Ardern [or, in 2008, Judith Tizard].

Don’t let that situation play out in the Wairarapa!

Now, I criticize Greens supporters in these electorates choosing to vote for people like Gareth Hughes or Denise Roche as “pointless displays of partisan loyalty” not due to any intrinsic animosity towards the Green Party. Quite the contrary. It’s just that in both cases, Greens voters *kept* voting for them with their candidate votes DESPITE the fact that i) they were never going to win the seat, ii) their votes could have easily stopped the local Nat; and iii) more to the point, in several of these elections these candidates were virtually assured entry into Parliament *anyway* due to relatively high list placings.

There was thus literally nothing to be gained by these Greens voters other than the decidedly cosmetic “benefit” of their preferred party having a non-zero candidate vote in these electorates when you go and look up the results on wikipedia some years later. And is that REALLY the sort of thing that’s worth sacrificing a chance at blocking or turfing out an objectionable local MP over?

In any case, according to the ‘effective list’ rankings done by Kiwiblog [i.e. who gets brought in as a List MP for each party, once their [likely] electorate seat wins are taken into consideration – as these are removed from the number of list MPs a party gets to ensure proportionality in Parliament], on present polling Kieran McAnulty would be easily assured of a List Seat anyway, regardless of how well he does in the Wairarapa. In fact, off the back of the Colmar-Brunton results from mid-way through last month, McAnulty would be the sixteenth List MP that Labour would get – with another six List MPs after him as a ‘buffer’. Since then, Labour’s support has gone UP by a further six percent according to the same poll, making McAnulty a virtually assured prospect for Parliament regardless of whether Wairarapians vote for him or not.

So therefore – if, for some reason, you’re part of the minority of Wairarapa voters who really like Kieran McAnulty and want to see him as an MP … then the most plausible way to make that happen is by giving Labour your Party Vote. NOT by voting for him with your candidate vote.

And if you’re somebody who wants National’s incumbent inflatable-arm man gone, then there really is only one choice. Vote Ron. Choosing to support any other candidate is pretty much tantamount to consciously voting for the status quo of ongoing National neglect of the seat by Alaistar Scott.

These days, possibly due to one or perhaps both of us having grown, I don’t see eye-to-eye with Winston quite as much as I used to. But if there’s one thing I’ve always absolutely hated in politics, it’s an unvarnished and quite undeserved brouhaha-bandwagon-beatup.

And from where I’m sitting, that’s EXACTLY what certain figures on the right and in the media (but then, I repeat myself) are attempting to do to Winston over his superannuation overpayment non-starter of a non-scandal.

Let’s be clear about this. Yes, Winston received more money than he was entitled to. Nobody denies this – least of all Winston. And yes, Winston was notified about this by MSD with the story eventually being ‘broken’ by Newshub [who were presumably ‘scooping’ Newsroom for reasons we’ll go into a bit later], rather than “coming clean” of his own admission like Turei did.

But within twenty four hours of the Ministry of Social Development hitting up Winston about his seven years of overpayments, he’d arranged to sort it out with them and pay back the money. Exactly what Turei probably should have done *long* before she chose to go public with her own circumstances – although personally, I’m not quite sure how much of a reasonable comparison there is between an unemployed solo mother struggling to put food on the table and Winston’s personal circumstances circa 2010.

So why is this a story at all, then? What possible angle is there to hook leading political journalists up and down the country into devoting so many acres of celluloid and lakes of newsprint (as well as, presumably, the Chinese-owned paper-pulp forestry to print it upon) into covering an older New Zealander drawing his state-guaranteed pension, as is his right – but with a bit extra due to a paperwork snafu, that’s since been paid back.

Well, one explanation is – as the old Indian proverb goes – “the monkeys only shake the tree with the good mangoes”. Winston is ALWAYS news, with almost everything he does, particularly the more seemingly ‘controversial’ bits. And after some decades as a leading campaigner for ‘transparency’ in just about everybody else’s dealings, any whiff of a ‘cover-up’ [even if there is, pretty emphatically, no such thing actually occurring] is going to send the nation’s commentariat into an unholy frenzy that resembles nothing so much as airport sniffer-dogs who’ve suddenly developed an avowed cocaine problem.

And, as it happens, due to Winston’s long-standing championing of superannuation, its rates, and its accessibility, the fact that there is now a superannuation story STARRING the ‘king of super’ – rather than casting him as a noble champion for the Silver Horde [Cohen the Barbarian notwithstanding] – was also, always going to pique media interest. I remember the time he first used his Gold Card in 2010 [because I was there along for the ride to Waiheke and back as part of the stunt] and how much media attention THAT attracted, as a comparative example.

With this in mind, it would almost have been more intriguing had various breathless faux-“journalists” NOT seized upon this story to relentlessly parade about like a guy on a bogey around November 5th and on fire.

But there is another one. A better one.

Look “behind the curtain”, if you will.

The timing of events is, in politics, almost never coincidental.

Winston’s superannuation overpayment was picked up at some point in mid-late July – about the same time that Turei’s disclosure came out. It’s possible, albeit unlikely, that these two events are connected – and if I were a paranoid man (as opposed to actually having a number of folk out to get me), I’d have been wondering if the Nats had decided to go ‘trawling’ (or, perhaps in deference to Winston’s preferred hobbies, “fishing”) for data on various Opposition MPs which might be useful from MSD’s voluminous records, in light of Turei’s circumstances being such a goldmine. [Seriously – an “own-goal-mine” is probably the most charitable way to describe it. As compassionate as we might feel about her disclosure and its reasoning, it’s rather difficult ot argue that your poll numbers being halved and a pressurized resignation is a victory for National rather than the Greens]

Late last week, highly placed Beltway contacts of mine hit me up to ask if I knew anything about an impending scandal that was supposedly about to hit New Zealand First. I’m rather out of the loop when it comes to NZ First, so I had to confess that I did not.

I did, however, have the presence of mind to ask my associates just why they thought NZF was about to be in the gun. They bluntly stated that there was about to be a rather ‘large’ scandal concerning National due to come out early the next week, and that National was looking about to find something to ‘defuse’ the situation pre-emptively by putting out a DISTRACTION SCANDAL that would harm their adversaries and minimize the damage to their own side.

Some time after this, I found myself on to Twitter [because apparently, that’s where all the meaningful opinion-shaping in this country takes place], and saw Newsroom editor Tim Murphy’s series of tweets in relation to the “#MotherOfAllScandals” which his organization was due to break on Monday. A quick bit of digging identified what this was likely to be; meaning when folk started posting material about Winston’s superannuation situation on Sunday, I didn’t think that this was the “MOAS” being breathlessly referred to. And, interestingly, SundayStar Times editor Jonathan Milne was also of the opinion that the Winston story was not the aforementioned Maternal Super-Scandal.

It did, however, fit the profile for the aforementioned distraction-defusion story which National would want out in preparation for Big Things hitting the fan on Monday.

Adding potential complication to the chain of events is that Newsroom appeared ready to break the story on Monday (and we can tell this via the rather more detailed writeup which appeared there, replete with things like an eighteen thousand dollar figure for the repayment etc.), yet Newshub’s Lloyd Burr was all over the story as early as Saturday night – which would have been mere hours after the Beltway/Commentariat/Self-Important-People-Of-NZ-Politics were all collectively set aflutter by Murphy’s comments on an impending “Mother Of All Scandals”.

So here’s what I think happened – National freaked about what was about to come out about them (nothing yet has – officially, at least – with speculation that this is due to some rather high-powered lawyers), and then decided to play their *ahem* trump card by ‘leaking’ the information on Winston’s circumstances to Burr et co in a desperate bid to get the nation’s news media heading off in another direction to the one they were then sniffing upon. And, at the same time, hopefully diminish NZ First’s (again rising) vote … whilst also perhaps drawing in voters who’d switched over to Labour back to NZ First [the ‘battler-sympathy demographic’ – as my rather wise former NZ Politics lecturer, Patrick Hine suggested when promulgating this theory].

Although with that theory now out there … there are still some other questions. Like just why Lloyd Burr was so desperate to present Winston as engaged in some sort of supremely dodgy “cover-up” over this issue. Take a listen to what he had to say on Newshub Monday night, for instance. He is at pains to present Winston’s story as demonstrably changing between Saturday night and Monday.

It’s literally a situation wherein we might as well have had Burr’s contribution to the coverage being “On Saturday, Winston said it was Saturday. On Sunday he said it was Sunday! WHICH IS IT, MISTER PETERS?!”

Like I said – there is an actual beat-up going on here from certain quarters, and I won’t stand for it.

And while it’s probably not new for errant press-fiends to be attacking and haranguing Winston about just about everything … it’s some of the other points of criticism he’s been getting – and, indeed, which the superannuation system at large has been getting – particularly from folk who at least nominally self-identify as being on the ‘left wing’ or in the center of our nation’s politics.

Apparently, this error justifies completely shifting the way we do pensions in this country – whether increasing the age to 67 (or further), shifting to means-testing superannuation, putting pensioners through the same demeaning, debilitating, and denigrating set of hoop-jumping we regularly subject our beneficiaries to, or just about anything else to subtly chip away at one of the last remaining bastions of our pre-Ruthanasia broad-base and equitable Welfare State.

Most peculiarly, it’s folk on the to-the-left-of-ACT end of politics who are getting seriously vociferous about all of this. And I can’t quite work out whether it’s simple animosity towards Winston or more insidious desire to carry out some sort of ‘intergenerational political war’ against the older generations of New Zealanders … by targeting some of the least well off in our society (pensioners) except pretending you’re somehow taking on the high and mighty (one particular not entirely poverty-stricken MP).

To be fair, Winston is not on a bad salary at the moment as leader of the New Zealand First Party. He’s worked hard for that, though; and it’s probably important to note that when he applied for superannuation upon hitting 65, he wasn’t thusly employed or renumerated. In point of fact, he didn’t actually HAVE a stable income of his own – and was frantically shovelling money into desperately attempting to keep New Zealand First ticking over til we got back into Parliament.

So insisting he shouldn’t have applied for a pension in the first place is just a complete, woeful misunderstanding of his circumstances at the time. And in any case, it’s entirely legal and moral for an older New Zealander to receive the pension that they’ve spent pretty much all their working life paying into the tax system to fund in the first place. Indeed, one might argue that drawing a pension like that may even help to keep them more ‘in touch’ with some of the circumstances of those of their constituents who are also similarly funded.

Because even a cursory look over New Zealand First’s record in office (where the party was responsible for securing free healthcare for under 6’s, for a start) and policy in the manifesto, suggests that if anything NZ First has been leading the charge in direct OPPOSITION to the undeniable trend towards underresourcing our kids which Grieve comments upon.

The unearned vitriol towards Winston is also not simply to be found from the benches of the commentariat, either – an absolute minority of whom, if any, presumably have to get by on an ordinary, unvarnished superannuation cheque per week.

I’ve seen a reasonable number of much younger, hipper [rather than hip-replacement] “lefties” deciding to take it upon themselves to do National’s dirty work for it and take Winston to task for something that pretty much everybody outright agrees probably wasn’t his fault.

Amongsts the worst of these was somebody whom I usually have a bit of time for castigating both Winston for allegedly “committing fraud”, and pretty much the entire political and media establishment for letting him off scot-free for the aforementioned criminal conduct whilst crucifying Metiria Turei a month earlier.

And yes, there an array of very unfair reasons why Winston’s experience in this regard has been and will continue to be different to that of Turei. For starters, there’s the “realpolitik” calculation – both National and Labour are going to need New Zealand First to form a Government next month. Neither party was ever especially wild about dealing with the Greens (except during the brief, halcyon days of the Memorandum of Understanding, I suppose). Winston’s circumstances are therefore referred to as “a private matter for Mr Peters” by both Bill English and Jacinda Ardern – in marked contrast to Ardern ruling Turei out of Cabinet.

For further, there’s the general disparagement with which beneficiaries are regarded by much of the voting population of New Zealand – the perennial “acceptable targets” of all manner of political (or policy-economic) abuse. Retirees, by contrast [or, more properly in this instance, folk who are 65+ but still working], get a much smoother ride from everybody other than ACT, the extreme right wing of the National Party, and occasionally Labour when it’s wishing to appear “fiscally responsible” at the expense of others whom it doesn’t think will be voting for it anyway.

And beyond that, well .. to put it bluntly, it’s Winston. Even leaving aside the issues of gender, class, and solo-motherishness (race, for obvious reasons, is a bit difficult to sketch a duality on here), Winston is always going to at this stage in his career, get less bludgeoned about the head due to a ‘scandal’ than another politician in even exactly the same situation – let alone a loosely comparable one. Part of that, no doubt, is because he’s become this endearing grandfatherly figure for the nation at large; and another part is due to that ancient Pratchettian maxim [*also* voiced by a man running a Silver Horde as it happens] … “don’t get into an arse-kicking contest with a porcupine”.

But like I said. That definitely doesn’t mean that Turei’s situation was “fair”. It also doesn’t mean that Winston’s situation is “fair” – on grounds that it’s very difficult to conceive of a universe in which MSD being used as a political weapon by the Government *is* fair. Not least because this definitely isn’t the first time National’s done this – recall all those instances of Paula Bennett disclosing information about folk criticizing her and her Ministry? National refused to apologize then, too…

Yet absolutely NONE of this justifies folk going around attacking or outright defaming Winston over this situation, in some sort of mistaken belief that if they just slander him hard enough or take the belt-sander to him vigorously enough … that this will somehow make the Turei resignation *un-happen*, or ensure “fair” treatment for both of them via the typical gold standard of applying liberally unfair treatment to the one who’s perceived as having gotten off ‘easier’ in both political stakes as well as the court of public opinion.

As a great man once said … “two wrongs don’t make a right”. I’m pretty sure that’s how that proverb’s supposed to go, isn’t it?

So let’s be clear about this, shall we?

Once more, from the top.

Yes, it appears that Winston was overpaid a state pension for a period of seven years.

Yes, it appears that somebody stuffed up to make this happen – albeit in a non-malicious/intentionally-fraudulent way.

Yes, it appears that the situation was resolved to MSD’s satisfaction at some point prior to the National Party’s high-ups becoming aware of it.

Yes, it appears some seriously improper things have happened between there and Saturday Night to lead to what should have been a humdrum administrative matter becoming front-page news for what’s probably going to be a dominant portion of this year’s Election.

And Yes, Metiria did get a lot more of a harsh reception over her issue than Winston has had on his.

Not least, presumably, due to them not actually being the same issue at all – despite attempts to present them to the contrary – and because it’s now rather swiftly become National’s issue rather than Winston’s.

But No, Winston’s situation does NOT make the case for seriously monkeying with the superannuation system this country presently has in place. Although it’s quite probable that the “No Surprises” policy is going to get some at least strenuously cosmetic adjustment going forward.

And No, no social justice interests are meaningfully advanced – from ANY side – by attempting to lay into Winston because you don’t think he’s being hacked at aggressively enough.

The only people who benefit from folk seeking to do that, are the Nats and some of the Media – because that’s exactly what they wanted to have happen right from the get-go. Why give it to them.

So in summary … if you REALLY WANT a serious scandal to look into – it’s not Winston’s overpaid pension. It’s not even the outrage from the right and their partisan plants in our commentariat.

Instead, it’s the fact that we’ve got a Third Term government who’ve evidently chosen to WEAPONIZE the petty tyranny of state apparatii and surveillance/oversight in a bid to try and significantly impact the outcome of this year’s General Election. (and yup, again, this is something which ordinary beneficiaries and other welfare recipients have to put up with on a daily basis – it’s just that they don’t usually get to decide the Government)

I’m almost tempted to get my popcorn out of the pantry that was hitherto being saved for the ACTUAL Mother Of All Scandals to tide me over while this one plays out.

Whether you’re of the Left, the Right, or that mythical tfwtoointelligent political alignment, the “center” … you DESERVE to be ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGED at the way this whole thing has unfolded.

When it comes to this ongoing imbroglio’s narrative subject … Nobody (other than Winston, and yes this is actually in Hansard) has ever declared him to be without fault.

But it’s one HELL of a Crosby-Textor Deceased Feline And/Or Monty Python Post-Mortem Parrot that we now find ourselves in a situation wherein people nominally on the progressive side of politics – and everywhere else for that matter – are more interested in attacking the victim of some seriously dodgy practices by the state (or for that matter, beating allegedly “told you so” hobby-horse longstanding matters of policy), than they are in calling out the deplorable Government conduct which has been exposed in its course.

In fact, for the minds of some, it’s virtually a bloody albino pachyderm presently domiciled in or about one’s cranial lounge.

DON’T lose sight of the real issue here.

If you’re angry about Metiria, or angry about Paula Bennett, or angry about welfare, or angry about pensions, or angry about journalists, or angry about (perhaps even if just “at”) Winston … well, I’d like to think there’s one thing we can ALL agree on.

If you’re a Nat reading this (unlikely, I know – but hey, stranger things have happened) … then please, next month, remember all the hatred you had for the “nanny state” or whatever it was back under Helen Clark, and vote AGAINST the same craven crew who seemingly have no issue finding out whatever it is they like about you, and then leaking it to the press should you even start to look like a threat.

And if you’re an anti-Nat reading this … well, take some solace in the fact that given Winston famously blocked the Green Party out of Government in 2005 as a direct response to, inter alia, Rod Donald basically calling him Hitler – just imagine how cold he’ll be on the possibility of supporting a National-led government after all this has blown up.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/08/30/wtf-winstons-pension-the-motherofallscandals-and-filthy-politics-in-2017/feed/20Purple Rain Man: The Brief History Of Thirty Three Years Of Peter Dunne In Parliamenthttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/08/23/purple-rain-man-the-brief-history-of-thirty-three-years-of-peter-dunne-in-parliament/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/08/23/purple-rain-man-the-brief-history-of-thirty-three-years-of-peter-dunne-in-parliament/#commentsTue, 22 Aug 2017 19:01:40 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=91079

I remember once upon a time remarking that Peter Dunne’s occupancy of the Ohariu seat was one of the great certainties in life, almost equivalent to those other inevitabilities – “Death” and “Taxes”. Which, given his previous positions as Minister of Revenue and Associate Health Minister, was a perhaps apt comparison.

The other (slightly disappointed) quip I came up with was that the only thing likely to dislodge Peter Dunne from Fortress Ohariu would seemingly be a rather direct comet impact on the seat.

Well, as of mid-morning yesterday, it would indeed appear that a falling star has brought about the extinction of the Dunneosaurs [sorry, had to have at least one Dunne-pun, and I like to think it’s a considerable improvement on the “Done” ones everybody else has felt the overwhelming compulsion to go with in their titles this week].

What brought about Dunne’s rather dramatic exit, we cannot yet say with significant surety. The ‘official’ explanation is that polling-data had him clearly losing to Labour’s Greg O’Connor ; and it has also been suggested in concert with this that National may have decided that they preferred their chances putting forward Brett Hudson as an actual serious candidate against O’Connor, and therefore pressured Dunne to stand aside in the hopes that his vote would decamp to National. This is plausible, albeit peculiar – as it wasn’t a week ago that Hudson was putting out letters urging his putative not-supporters to cast their vote for Dunne instead of his good self. An embarrassing climb-down (even though for Hudson, technically it’s a climb-UP) no matter how one chooses to slice it.

Another potential explanation which instantly popped into my head upon hearing the news, was that the Australians might have demanded Dunne’s head on a pike in ‘utu’ for his outing Barnaby Joyce as a New Zealander. This might sound slightly far-fetched, but consider that Australian Foreign Minister already made plainly clear that she did not see how her Government could work with a New Zealand one containing an MP who sought to undermine Canberra’s duly elected masters. And further, that one of the few things keeping National relatively afloat is their positive relationship with the Australians – in both a ‘foreign policy’ sense, and in a “we’re preventing greater brain-drain flight to Oz thanks to the Australians keeping the screws on Kiwis living over there” one.

But in any case, having addressed the present (I’m not sure we’re in a position to be speaking of a ‘future’ – ‘United’ or otherwise); I’d like to take a brief moment to return to the past. A sort of ‘Walking With Bouffants’, if you will and a skin-deep career retrospective for Parliament’s apparently-unkillable (except by his own hand) political phenomenon.

Dunne entered Parliament in the 1984 watershed Election, as a young and trusting Labour MP; seeing off the incumbent National representative thanks in no small part to Bob Jones [of New Zealand Party and Mouthy Newspaper Curmudgeon fame] also standing in the seat and splitting the vote there. A pattern of Dunne benefitting disproportionately from asinine vote-splittery which appears to have persisted much of the way through his Parliamentary career.

Now, the date and the demarcation of party are signfiicant – as they colour Dunne as one of the ‘vanguard-who-are-now-old-guard’ of the Labour Party. Indeed, as pretty much the last of the ’84 intake to have still been serving in our nation’s politics in an active capacity. While some of those who came in at that Election found themselves basically appalled by what the Labour Party then decided to do in the form of Rogernomics, Dunne appeared to make his peace both early and often with the tawdry neoliberal agenda. And where one of his ‘classmates’, Jim Anderton, continually attempted to bitterly oppose Labour’s new direction until eventually leaving the party entirely in protest at it – Dunne did the opposite, gradually climbing the ‘greasy pole’ to Ministerial warrants and a prominent position on the ‘right’ of the Labour Party.

This created something of an interesting predicament for him in the early ’90s, however – as following the series of defeats of Labour in the twisted-metal blackened aftermath wreckage of Rogernomics, the party gradually began to reorientate itself away from such a strict and doctrinaire adherence to the rantings of the Mad Monetarists. Dunne’s days were perhaps numbered – and so in 1994, he chose to break away from the Labour Party to reconvene himself as an Independent. The impending introduction of MMP in the 1996 General Election presumably weighed somewhat upon this decision, as it gave him an actual serious shot at leading his much-desired “centrist” movement rather than finding his fate at the ‘mercy’ of theoretically more left-leaning colleagues.

“Future New Zealand” was thus born … which then promptly folded itself into the United Party. Which Dunne subsequently wound up leading, largely by virtue of all its other seven MPs being turfed out at the 1996 Election.

This um … no undue disrespect to Mr Dunne … basically sets up the pattern for Peter Dunne in the MMP era. That of a man whose political career appears to be sustained by the steady assimiliation of other parties (with each of the Advance New Zealand, Ethnic Minorities, and Conservative Party [no, not that one] all joining the United front before the 1999 Election), and whose leadership of the resulting seriously Frankenstinian [‘Futurestinian’?] vehicle is guaranteed largely if not entirely by the fact that when the chips are down, he’ll likely remain the last man standing. Oh, and as for the OTHER dominant theme of Dunne’s political career – the former Labour Minister sought out a coalition agreement with the National Party, and was resultingly made a Minister at their table in consequence.

His 1999 electoral performance retains eerie echoes for more recent circumstances, in that United’s vote continued to trend downwards (probably due to voters wishing to punish anybody associated with the unpopular incumbent National government) – but with Dunne himself arguably being saved by the National Party’s perhaps somewhat curious decision not to stand a candidate in his electorate at that year’s contest.

Following on from this, Dunne appears to have realized that he was basically incapable of building a movement wholesale from his own cloth; and that the far quicker and more expeditious route to actually providing some shred of legitimacy for his tawdry claims to being a serious political “party” … would be to shift gear on his ‘assimilationist’ electoral vehicle-building from snapping up organizations that weren’t so much ‘minnows’ as outright ‘microbes’ – and instead take a ‘bigger fish’ [which was still, functionally, plankton].

The first cab off the rank for this 1999-2002 phase was, rather appropriately, the “Future Party”. Which for various reasons had gone from being a constituent component of the Christian Coalition (which polled an impressive 4.33% at the 1996 General Election – arguably higher than any other faith-inflected party since, Neoliberal-Cultists perhaps notwithstanding), through to falling out with Christian Heritage and then pursuing a more ‘secular’-looking branding using a riff on Dunne’s own old party name – “Future New Zealand”. Thus making for at least two occasions on which Peter Dunne has sublimated the Future. Perhaps rather amusingly, they managed to considerably out-poll Dunne’s “United” party by more than two to one at the 1999 General Election – 1.12% to 0.54%; which must surely have made for interesting circumstances in the ‘merger’ negotiations.

This sets the stage for the 2002 General Election – wherein, despite an array of jokes about things like “worms knowing their own”, Peter Dunne managed a rather impressive performance which garnered him for the first time an actual political party with multi-member Caucus under his leadership.

“United Future” was its name, and with deference to its having eight MPs drawn from a variety of backgrounds for the 2002-2005 Parliamentary Term, at that stage the name was something other than decidedly false advertising. And to be fair to Dunne, his team’s 6.69% showing was an inarguably surprisingly strong one for a figure whose previous outings tended to be down within not just the margin of error but actually below 1%. However, it’s probably worth noting that UF’s strong 2002 result occurred in the context of a phenomenally weak Bill English leading National to its worst-ever outcome [not that it was his fault – the overbearing personage of Jenny Shipley remaining Leader up until almost immediately before the 2002 Election having much more to do with it] – meaning that pretty much ALL the ‘minor parties’ [other than the Alliance] managed to do strikingly well at that year’s Election.

And, for that matter, much worse three years later in 2005 when the National Party’s rally under Don Brash squeezed everybody as a result.

The cracks that would come more completely asunder later in United Future’s political life were already starting to show during the 2002 term, though – with what had previously seemed like a relatively ‘united’ front on ‘values’ to do with the family and the like giving way to a split Caucus on the matter of Civil Unions (although not the actual Civil Union Act 2004 – which was unanimously opposed by UF MPs). This suggests that Dunne’s more ‘middle of the road’ personal beliefs and ethos were perhaps uneasy bedmates with the Christian conservatives whom he’d entered into a supposedly mutually beneficial accord with a few years earlier. These tensions would later basically spell the end of the party being a “party” in the next Parliamentary term, as we shall soon see.

The run-up to the 2005 General Election wasn’t all disunity and divisions, though. True to form, Peter Dunne managed to entice a small gaggle of smaller parties to come join his soiree – in this case, the Outdoor Recreation Party (which had scored a relatively impressive 1.28% of the vote in 2002 – just a shade less than the combined United Party shares of the vote for both 1996 and 1999 put together), and a still-smaller political organization called the “WIN Party” set up by a bunch of barmen to oppose the then-imminent-and-controversial smoking ban in the nation’s pubs. It is a mark of United Future’s relative health as a party at this stage that they were actually in a position to field an almost full list of fifty seven candidates. And it also presumably says something interesting about the nature of the appeal of Dunne’s ‘safe’ seat to various bush-league politicos that he managed to successfully bring in everything from Christian Conservatives (including some actual apparent Fundamentalists and a former rally-car champion) to ‘Liberals’ to Hunting-And-Smoking campaigners all in the space of a term and a half period.

As mentioned above, the strong National showing in 2005 meant that pretty much all the minor parties who’d profited off its 2002 doldrums were squeezed back towards (or even under) the 5% threshold. United Future was, entirely unsurprisingly, in the latter category – and dropped back by just over four percent to 2.67% (and 3 rather ornery MPs) at that year’s Election.

Still, as tempting as it is in just about any given situation to “Blame National” (also often accurate – and fun, too), this is not the entire story. The United Future Caucus and List saw a number of occasionally somewhat high-profile (by the standards of the party, anyway) defections and desertions (including two sitting MPs – Marc Alexander and Paul Adams) in the run-up to the Election which can hardly have helped its credibility with voters. It’s also quite possible that the various antics of United Future’s rather prominent Christian fundamentalist fringe over the 2002-2005 term turned many more secularly inclined voters off from the Party. It thus found itself caught between a bit of a rock and a hard place electorally – losing ‘social conservative’ voters to National, Christian-identity voters to an array of other microbial(-scale) parties [including the Destiny Church vehicle and its 0.62%], and people who’d found themselves attracted by the ‘Common Sense’ theme of United Future’s 2002 campaign but who had no great and abiding love for either prior-mentioned demographic heading off in all directions.

And whilst one might have been forgiven for presuming that a Caucus-size of three would limit any future opportunities for interior schisming … ensuing developments over the course of the 2005-2008 Parliamentary Term would clearly demonstrate otherwise.

Dunne had accepted a Ministerial warrant as part of the price of his support for the 2005 Labour-led Government (a curious development given his participation in the ‘original’ Cup Of Tea stunt in a Mt Eden cafe with then-National Party leader Don Brash earlier that year), and now found himself again in an intractable position – having to balance both the ‘progressive-ish’ interests of his coalition partner with the decidedly ‘conservative’ inclinations of his two caucus-mates [who were both from the Christian end of politics]. The problems which had begun to show themselves from Dunne’s cobble-together political construction approach in the 2002 term therefore hadn’t just not been transcended – they’d actively intensified.

Matters came to a head in 2006, when the Outdoor Recreation Party decided to quit the United Future umbrella (or, perhaps, pup-tent) in response to the perceived dominance of the Christian strands within United Future’s makeup (that had lead to things like one of its MPs attempting to put forward legislation to pre-emptively outlaw gay marriage – a move that must surely have weighed uneasily upon Dunne, given his 1980s support for the decriminalization of homosexuality); which represented a worry not just because of the evident difficulty of keeping so many different political ethoi together under the one roof … but also because Outdoor Recreation had brought with it at least a percent of the vote, which now seemed set to disapparate.

Dunne’s electile dysfunction was not limited to Outdoor Recreation deciding it’d do better outside, either. His decision to not-vigorously-oppose various pieces of legislation put forward by the ‘social progressive’ end of Parliament [like Sue Bradford’s parental discipline bill, and presumably also the previous material on civil unions] lead to an interior standoff (and allegedly, a leadership challenge – because the smartest thing to do when your party is in Parliament purely via the grace of one MP holding a seat is to attempt to ouster him) in what remained of United Future’s Parliamentary Caucus. This resulted in United Future finishing the 2005-2008 Parliamentary Term with two MPs rather than three, after Gordon Copeland announced his resignation from United Future (but not, for some reason, Parliament) in order to go off and found his own party … somewhat imaginatively called “Future New Zealand”. (We’re now up to at least three such vehicles in connection with Dunne, for those of you playing at home – none of which, it turns out, have actually had any ‘Future’.). Alongside this, at least one other somewhat disgruntled former United Future MP wound up convening a Christian-based organization competing rather directly for UF’s share of the vote – in the form of Paul Adams and the Family Party [which garnered 0.35% of the vote that year – a figure which might conceivably have netted Dunne a List MP had it remained with UF].

The 2008 General Election was therefore quite a dire prospect for Dunne, as many of the elements he’d successfully tethered to his own electoral life-raft in the form of an outrigger canoe had made subsequent decisions to cleave off and go their own ways. It is perhaps a bitter irony for him that the Outdoor Recreation Party quit in reaction to the influence and shenanigans of a group whom Dunne would himself fall out rather vitriolically about a year later, leaving him a one-man band in Parliament where he might otherwise have used Outdoor Recreation and the like to further his attempted pivot back towards the ‘center’/’liberal democrat’ style politics.

Where just three years before, he’d had eight MPs and an appreciable above-five-percent share of the vote, his showing on Election Night 2008 was a literal fraction of that – 0.87% and a loss of 1.8% and all of his List MPs. He also faired particularly poorly in his own life-line seat of Ohariu – coming in at just 1,006 votes ahead of Labour’s Charles Chauvel [a situation which probably resulted in no small part from the Greens’ Gareth Hughes scoring nearly three thousand votes that presumably came at Labour’s expense in that seat in that year].

However, Dunne does not appear to have been especially perturbed, and quite quickly settled in to a simulacrum of his previous role propping up National, some twelve years earlier. He got yet another Ministerial Warrant out of it [thus making him a bearer of the perhaps dubious distinction of having served as a Minister in literally every Government, whether National or Labour, since 1984], as well as an undertaking from National not to seriously challenge him in Ohariu so that he’d be able to continue to double-prop-up their regime. And when I say “double prop up”, I mean not just guaranteeing them his vote in the House on Confidence &amp; Supply matters (and who knows what else) – but also, due to the terminal unlikelihood of his ever bringing in any List MPs again, creating an ‘overhang’ seat that would make it still harder for the non-National parties to form Government. [A manipulation of the rules of MMP which an associate who’s considerably more of a political follower than even I – Mr Ralph Hall – has described as “the only real Dirty Deal” of recent elections]

The run-up to the 2011 General Election saw Dunne double down on his attempts to market himself as a ‘common sense’ politician of the middle-of-the-road center, in rather direct contravention of the extremism which had previously flourished under his roof. This was probably at least partially driven by the fact that so very much of United Future’s former Christian-conservative support-base had become actively alienated by Dunne’s swing back towards ‘liberal’ values – and were in any case already lining up behind the newly prominent Conservative Party under a then not nearly as ridiculous seeming Colin Craig (who, in retrospect, appears to have based his public persona in no small part upon what worked so strikingly – needless to say, surprisingly – well for Dunne in the yesteryear hayday of United Future’s popular height toward the start of the New Millennium).

While there might have been some arguable merit towards his intentional references to United Future as being the local equivalent to the UK’s “Liberal Democrats” in a different electoral terrain, the plain fact was that at the height of the John Key Era most folk who’d have been won over by this kind of positioning were already well and truly absorbed by National. It should therefore come as no especial surprise that United Future’s polling continued to drop – although this time by a mere 0.27% [to 0.60%], its lowest drop over the span of its history.

However, if United Future’s branding on the campaign trail attempted to portray an image of staid moderation (minus his attention-grabbing attempt at ‘Planking’ on BackBenchers that year, or his ‘dead possum’ video talking about his admittedly rather impressive hair), the anctics of United Future over the course of the 2011-2014 Parliamentary Term were anything but.

Most prominent among Dunne’s legislative ‘achievements’ must surely be the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 – which sought to reconcile the competing realities of synthetic cannabinoids and other drugs flooding our country with the plain fact that prohibition does not work. Dunne has copped quite a bit of flakk over the years for the PSA, on grounds that it allowed potentially harmful drugs which were already being sold before its passage to remain in the market-place for a number of months after safety-concerns about them were raised. However, it’s worth noting that the PSA and its various amendment acts DID (eventually) take synthetic cannabinoids out of the (legal) drug marketplace – even if they did so in a manner which was rather hap-hazard, and which arguably continued to contribute to the wretched trade in human misery right the way through.

More to the point, the chief failings of the PSA remain the ‘ring-fencing’ around cannabis and other drugs which were scheduled in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, as a concession to National et co. It is my belief that had the provisions prohibiting cannabis from being regulated or even assessed under the PSA not been in existence, then the PSA could very well have provided a viable pathway towards meaningful cannabis law reform in this country. And, along the way, rendered the market for synthetic cannabinoids [whether legitimate or otherwise] pretty much obsolete. Interestingly, some of the noises Dunne had begun making over the last year or so suggests that he, too, had become keenly aware of this possibility – and was occasionally known to speak up actively in its favour. But too little, too late. So for a generation of concerned parents and liberal drug users, he shall live on in infamy as the man who helped to keep real weed illegal, whilst bringing us the scourge of legally available synthetic cannabinoids – even though these were already on-sale before his PSA, and remain illicitly available (and evidently much less safer than even the ones which WERE sold in daries were) after he moved to ban those too.

In any case, it is interesting to look back upon the timing of the Psychoactive Substances Act Amendment Bill which eventually torpedo’d the whole ‘legal’ part of the “legal highs” trade for good, in relation to the rather illuminating interview-cum-psychoactive-safari which Dunne did with the ever-crusading John Campbell about the same time. There are cynical suggestions that synthetic cannabinoids were finally outlawed [pending further safety testing not involving animals – an arguably impossible requirement introduced by others due to animal welfare concerns] because the problems associated with them had finally really ‘come home to roost’ in the homes of the well-to-do and white who make up National’s prime pandered-to support-base. But I’m not so sure. Dunne certainly appeared genuinely disquieted by what he was witnessing in the proximity of those Porirua ‘legal high’ shops – and whether or not one thinks it was the right decision to undertake, I see no reason to doubt that his emotional response to viewing just what the legal highs industry was doing (intentionally, negligently, or otherwise) to a depressingly high (in multiple senses of the term) quotient of New Zealand played a role in bringing this law-change about.

At about the same time that the PSA was heading towards its final assent in Parliament in mid-2013, Dunne found himself simultaneously embroiled in two other political scandals. The first – that of his party suddenly ceasing to be (in legal terms at least) a “party”, was merely amusing and relatively quickly recovered from. The second, concerning his ‘alleged’ role in leaking materials relating to the Government’s whitewash Inquiry into their own previous mis-use of the state’s security intelligence services, is altogether more interesting. And dare I say, may actually paint Dunne in a relatively sympathetic light.

At the time that Dunne’s involvement in the long-running imbroglio hit the headlines, much of the commentary on his actions was basically gossip-founded ridicule. The dominant ‘theme’ generally ran “there’s no fool like an old fool” as part of an effort to make it appear that Dunne had had romantic designs on well-known NZ political reporter Andrea Vance (who played a prominent role in the breaking of certain details associated with the GCSB etc. Inquiry in the media). Perhaps this was, indeed, the case – although given the main ‘evidence’ put forward in support of this contention appears to have been a rather frequent and positive interaction between Dunne and Vance over Twitter, I don’t think it’s possible nor particularly wise to state this as uncontentious fact.

The other possibility, and one which in my more charitable moments, I’m inclined to place a certain level of weighting upon, is that Dunne actually does have principles after all (despite what his detractors might claim) – and upon seeing what appeared to be a reasonably reckless abuse of the state’s security apparatus, undertook to play what role he could in bringing these matters to light so that they might not recur so easily in the future. This entailed him leaking information to a journalist he evidently got on reasonably well with, who then proceeded to publish the resultant material in a way that embarrassed the Government and helped show that National’s own attempt to bring ‘accountability’ to the spying scandal was in actual fact nothing of the sort.

Which explanation is actually true – or, indeed, whether the truth (as is often the case in politics) instead lies somewhere in the middle – will likely remain unknown until Dunne chooses to write his own memoirs. But the latter possibility I’ve advanced certainly represents a much less bizarre potential explanation than an attempt to trade state-secrets for the promise of continued friendly-banter on Twitter with a (female) journalist. And if it does, indeed, subsequently turn out that Dunne acted with principle rather than penile-tissue as his prime motivator in this incident, then it will be arguably quite sad that a genuine Good Deed done for the Right Reasons wound up having such a deleterious effect upon him both personally and politically. Even though the Parliamentary Privileges Committee eventually ruled that the Henry Inquiry into the Kitteridge Inquiry’s leakage had well overstepped the bounds of propriety and even law in its hounding of Dunne, thus allowing him to resume his Ministerial Portfolios some months after being forced out of them, a cloud then settled over Dunne. Which, to be fair, might feasibly have been confused for his trademark ‘enthusiastic’ hairstyle but for the ‘silver lining’ being rather harder to find than his own marked signs of age. It also cannot have been nice to have the Opposition and seemingly every politico in the land attempt to reduce the whole thing down to a case of frustrated libido – particularly if it was untrue.

But such is politics.

The 2014 General Election proceeded in much the same fashion as the previous … ten … before it. Peter Dunne won Ohariu, although this time with a somewhat reduced share of the vote and a majority over Labour’s Ginny Andersen of a mere 710. He was undoubtedly helped considerably in securing this result by National newcomer Brett Hudson – who rather deliberately tanked, scoring less than half Dunne’s 13,569 votes in a bid to ensure that National would once again be able to call upon both Dunne’s vote in the House as well as his particular competencies in the Revenue and other portfolios.

The most interesting thing about this is probably not how close Labour once again came to securing victory in the seat (and again, we are left to wonder what might have been had The Greens’ Tane Woodley not stood and garnered 2764 votes there); but rather the fact that Brett Hudson was brought in to replace the Nat candidate (and sitting List MP) who’d stood there for National for the previous few Elections. It is my understanding from sources well-placed in National, that the reason for this ‘changing of the guard’ had much to do with Shanks’ apparent intent to actually attempt to be a decent ‘shadow’ constituency MP in the electorate – opening offices, reaching out to constituents, and attempting to help them with their issues. This, of course, placed National’s coalition partner at risk of being obviated at the next Election when his wafer-thin majority came under pressure from the National candidate AS WELL AS the Labour one – so Shanks was let go in favour of somebody who definitely wouldn’t be interested in winning the seat.

That man was Brett Hudson, and it makes for an amusing spectacle that he’s been forced inside a week to go from literally writing to the residents of Ohariu to urge them to vote for Dunne rather than himself … through to having to attempt to present himself as a serious challenger for the seat against Labour’s insurgent Greg O’Connor. Will the electorate buy this sudden influx of steel into the National designated fall-guy’s spine? Anyone’s guess. Although it’s probably worth pointing out that for the last several elections running (since the seat was re-established in 2008 – and going back further, in literally all elections in the MMP era other than 2002), National has convincingly won the Party Vote race in the seat. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll win Ohariu for their candidate, however – as the disparity between Labour’s share of the candidate vote and their share of the party vote would appear to indicate that quite a number of otherwise Blue voters have little to no compunction when it comes to voting for the Red guy to attempt to get rid of the Purple man between them.

However, in light of the aforementioned polling showing Greg O’Connor with a fourteen point lead over Dunne in his long-held seat, it’s eminently possible that National felt it was worth the gamble to ditch Dunne and run their own man unfettered in a desperate attempt to keep O’Connor out of Parliament. Or maybe Dunne decided to do as his former paymaster the Prime Minister did, and ‘go out a winner’ rather than facing the very real prospect of an ignominious defeat in approximately a month’s time.

Again, we shall likely never know the truth as to what motivated him. Which leads me to note that for a figure often depicted as our most ‘beige-iest’ of politicians … Dunne presents a surprisingly enigmatic figure upon closer inspection or implicit interrogation.

About all we can do is ask whether his snap-decision to resign this week (and it must have been a rather swiftly cogitated upon one – as I noted United Future billboards appeared in my electorate, freshly printed and minted, at some point between Friday and Tuesday, which suggests the ‘party apparatus’ was under the impression that a full campaign effort was still required basically up until Monday’s shock announcement) renders him untouched by that most excellent of political observations – that “all political careers inevitably end in failure”.

In which case, I suppose we must ask what exactly it was that Dunne sought to do with his life in politics. If it’s winning elections, then he has certainly garnered an impressive – indeed, arguably inimitable – record of success. I cannot think of another MP in recent times (and particularly subject to the vicissitudes of the MMP era) who has managed a longer unbroken string of victories. Even that other ‘Great Survivor’ of New Zealand Politics, Winston Peters [aka ‘Taurangasaurus Rex”, once upon a time] managed to lose several seats and eventually find himself outside of Parliament (albeit temporarily).

And if it’s having an influence upon the course of a Government’s actions, then he once again has a singularly impressive resume. I’m not sure there’s ever been – since the days of Independents being the norm for our politics at least – another figure who’s managed to serve as a Minister in four successive governments. Particularly given the fact that the lead-parties in each nominally thought of themselves as being from ‘opposite sides of the aisle/ideology’ from each other [however untrue that might have actually been in practice].

But to what grand use or vision did he put this influence? What lasting and enduring achievements an we chalk up to this master of misdirecting MP-mortality. Winston has his Gold Card and KiwiRail. Jim Anderton (arguably) has his Kiwibank. Muldoon has any number of hydroelectric dams and other relics of a bygone age (one of which, I fully believe, ought be turned into a monolithic Muldoon monument in the mould of the Ramesseum of Egypt).

What does Dunne have to show for his time, here on Earth? Other than, perhaps, a succession of jokes about an overabundance of hairspray and politi-hack debates about whether his ‘bow-tie’ look provided the inspiration for a recent regeneration of Doctor Who.

Well, I guess there’s the aforementioned Psychoactive Substances Act. And in his own indirect way, possibly an unintentional role in the formation of the much-more-amusing-now-they’re-further-away-from-five-percent Conservative Party (who hoovered up a reasonable number of activists, former MPs, and attempted-successor-political-parties from United Future once it ditched its ‘Christian-conservative’ angles).

Dunne would probably say that other than several pieces of arguably minor legislation that are no doubt significant and helpful to a certain number of New Zealanders, his main impact upon our politics has been the pushing of a particular set of ‘values’. Words and principles like a soft-spoken quasi-liberalism, “common sense”, and opposition to the ‘extremists’ from parties like New Zealand First or The Greens.

That’s great rhetoric – and certainly goes hand-in-hand with his previous attempts to cast himself as the lead ‘moderating voice’ upon our politics (no matter whether it was ‘left’ or ‘right’ he felt he was ‘moderating’).

But the plain reality is that he got into politics to represent a theoretically left-wing party, only to wind up siding with the right-wingers who’d taken over the show – and eventually backing Labour’s trenchant opposition in the National Party.

He spent a decent portion of the 1980s, 90s and late 2000s/early 2010s advocating for broadly ‘liberal’ social values – yet one of his most significant effects upon our politics for at least two Parliamentary Terms was to allow his ‘safe’ electorate seat to be used as a springboard for occasionally quite noxious Christian conservatives and outright fundamentalists to enter our Parliament as MPs.

He claimed to support the ascendency of the ‘political center’ in opposition to ‘extremes’ of right or left; and yet found himself a keystone support-partner for what’s arguably the most right-wing government of the MMP era.

A man who vigorously opposed cannabis law reform (up until he didn’t), yet gave us first synthetic cannabis and then broader approval for cannabis-derived medical products. Who enthusiastically supported the decriminalization of homosexuality in the 80s, and voted for gay marriage in the 2010s – but also backed a 2005 bill to pre-emptively outlaw gay marriage put forward by one of his own MPs. Who pressed for a ‘Code of Conduct’ for MPs in the wake of a succession of controversial incidents featuring his Parliamentary ‘colleagues’ – yet who flagrantly played fast and loose with the bounds of propriety when it came to the outcome of a top-shelf Inquiry into our state security services (although to be fair, in this matter he was at least somewhat subsequently vindicated in this matter by the Parliamentary Privileges Committee).

All things considered, a cursory examination of Dunne’s political history and character reminds me of a metaphor deployed by John Ralston Saul to describe the neoliberal technocrats he’d observed operating across the West (and further afield) in the later years of the last decade. And while he probably didn’t have Dunne in mind when crafting this metaphor, given Dunne’s unquestionable status as an (elected) technocrat par-excellence within our politics it is entirely unsurprising as to how well it fits.

The image which Saul projects is one of rarified elites/experts attempting to surf a wave of events – and doing so with ever increasing skill as the leading edge of the wave becomes more and more vertical; but with ever less actual acknowledgement, appreciation, or engagement from the ordinary public for their efforts in doing so. Because ultimately, what they are doing is – if not meaningless, then functionally difficult to distinguish from same. And in any case, long out of step with the prevailing winds of public opinion.

Dunne, to my mind, is exactly one of those surfers. Nobody can deny the level of political skill it’s taken to remain undefeated these past thirty three years (whether in terms of reaching out to his constituents and understanding what they want of him, or pulling off tacit agreements with other parties to both allow him to ‘live’ through their aiding his re-election and to serve in an unbroken chain of their Governments), and somehow – bizarrely – at the ‘center’ of our politics for much of that time.

But ultimately, only a very vanishing few wound up watching his ever-more-precarious performance with anything other than bemusement.

And earlier this week in August, he finally lost his footing.

There are probably some heights up in Khandallah where on a particular kind of night and with the right sort of eyes you’d be able to look north and see the high-water mark – the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. [Apologies to Hunter S. Thompson for my appropriation of THAT metaphor]

Earlier this week, The Rev. Rolinson asked me just what it was that United Future stood for.

“Election in Ohariu, I believe”, was my reply.

Try as I might, I can’t seem to articulate a meaningful response about Dunne that’s more accurate than that.

Maybe that’s what ultimately did it for him. Finding himself without identifiable ‘principles’ in a game which more often seems to actively punish those who instead HAVE same.

At the time of writing, it’s been perhaps sixteen hours since news of Steve Bannon’s resignation broke. And dependent upon which side of the aisle you’re sitting on, this is either the best news since the Emancipation Proclamation because an alleged far-right apocalyptic ideologue has been turfed out of a position of power … or arguably even BETTER news, because your decrepit, oligatastic, neocolonially-enthused, warmongering exclusive club of political influencers now doesn’t have to listen to somebody from ‘outside’ the established Beltway consensus attempting to break in.

When I penned that over-long sentence, I originally intended the first part to refer to the Democrats and ‘liberals/left’ in general; whilst the latter would demarcate the Republicans. Yet thinking more about it, there’s a more fundamental division that transcends (US) party lines. Namely, that between the ‘mob’ whose main source of news and opinion – what they think in other words – on the movers and shakers of great, global events is the frequently outright ‘fake news’ of medias both mainstream and social, and who exist ‘outside’ the realm of actual influence and power … versus those who, put bluntly, do. From whatever nominal party they may hail from.

Now that might sound curious, but let’s consider why each group found something to dislike in Bannon.

For the former, it was obvious. He ran Breitbart. And lest we be unclear about this, I am not a Breitbart fan. They put out some pretty nausea-inducing content on occasion. Kinda like our on WhaleOil, I guess – except with a much greater degree of literacy, and the apparent business nouse to be able to successfully turn a profit and pay for Milo’s various shenanigans without having to do as Slater did and wind up actively begging readers for their spare change in order to keep things afloat.

His pre-Breitbart days were also laden with some … odd, and in the eyes of a few folk, decidedly unsettling work in the film industry. And again, the sorts of paens to the ‘golden age’ of Reaganism or ‘documentaries’ about ‘Islamofascism’ which he became known for are not exactly to my viewing taste. Although I’ll have to reserve judgment on his somewhat peculiar choice to bring Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus to the big screen [starring Anthony Hopkins] til I’ve seen it.

But does any of this make him a figure of such unremitting evil to have attracted the impressive opprobrium of seemingly every quarter of the political spectrum all at once? To render him a Palpatine-esque figure as the memosphere chose to represent him? Or the Grim Reaper, in the eyes of Saturday Night Live?

Questionable. After all, much of the above is pretty stock-standard conduct on the ‘conservative’ end of politics these days – particularly in America. And in any case, most certainly wouldn’t lead to him receiving such vociferous hatred even from the folk in his own party and the White House he so recently helped to take.

No, to understand why Bannon ‘had to go’, we need to look deeper. At things he’s actually done or tried to do whilst in a position of power and authority in American – and therefore global – politics.

The most striking thing I can recall about Bannon is hearing, shortly after he wound up taking up the mantle of Trump’s White House majordomo, how he’d set up a room in the White House with a big board on it, keeping track of both all the promises Trump had made on the campaign trail – and more importantly, how close the Administration was to ‘closing’ on each of them.

This is pretty revolutionary stuff. After all, we’ve become so patently used to the old maxim of “politicians campaign in poetry – then they govern in prose”, and other such jokes about how unlikely a given President is to actually stick to his word, that nobody batted an eye when Justice Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court included a line in one of his judgements about how campaign promises were legally speaking the least binding form of human commitment. It’s not just a Republican or American thing, either. After all, I seem to recall Obama promising an end to Guantanamo Bay, and our own National Party is presently in slightly more than lukewarm water for promising to deliver the same much-needed hospital in Dunedin for two Elections in a row…

But the trouble with what Bannon did there, from a political-insider stand-point, is that no politician tends to like constantly being reminded that they’re not actually in a position of absolute control. That they actually have constituents whom they’re directly responsible to – who placed their trust in the elected representative to do particular things which were loudly talked about on the campaign trail. Instead, freshly buoyed by the heedless empowerment of possibility, a newly minted political leader tends to wish to just do as he or she pleases and push the line that the electorate will just blithely accept the idea that what was promised during debates and advertisements and keynote speeches is just .. well .. as sort of puffery of no consequence. Not something they actually HAVE to be held to!

And meanwhile, the other traditional constraint upon an incoming politico is the ‘machinery of governance’. The folk out there – whether civil service, military personnel, or simply entrenched mandarins and lawmakers who are all necessary to make any given initiative work … yet who all tend to have their own ideas about how or whether it’s a good idea to do so. And who very often are so fundamentally wedded to the previous dominant consensus of whichever political environment they’re in that they are both fundamentally incapable of and actively inimical to the possibility of helping to make anything from OUTSIDE or that’s a direct challenge to that consensus happen.

This partially helps to explain things like why John F. Kennedy wasn’t able to completely call a halt to the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, for instance. Because even though he might personally have seen the lack of wisdom in what was going on [hence one reason why the operation was downgraded so significantly from something which would have borne closer resemblance to Ronald Reagan’s later invasion of Granada, to .. well .. what it was], there was simply too much of a commitment from everybody involved below him to just call the whole thing off.

Anyway, I digress.

The point is that over the last seven months we have basically been watching a slow-motion ‘civil war’ occurring at the very heart of American Politics. I do not refer to the outright street-battles between ‘AntiFa’ and others over Confederate memorials or statues of Joan of Arc, either.

Instead, it is that fundamental fault-line of politics which I talked about in a magazine column something like two years ago – “Nationalists vs Globalists”.

And whilst Trump was quite plainly elected in no small part thanks to his fairly direct appeals to some Nationalist – even outright ‘Nativist’ – political themes [things like abandoning the TPPA, or ending US military adventurism overseas, or cracking down hard on the finance industry and restoring regulations which previous administrations had been tearing up from Bill Clinton onwards] … the forces which have since coalesced around Trump, most particularly in both the Republican Party and his own family members [whom, perhaps somewhat regrettably, he can’t just ‘fire’ – unless they’re married to him], have most DEFINITELY been much more towards the ‘Globalist’ end of the spectrum.

We can see this most prominently with his daughter’s advocacy for military intervention in Syria, or his son-in-law attempting to strengthen the US-Saudi de-facto and self-defeating military co-dependence. Or, on a vaguely related note, the succession of just plain daft Republican moves like healthcare ‘reform’ under Paul Ryan [which, as I’ve noted previously, flew flat in the face of Trump’s previous few decades of pushing for ‘single payer’ public healthcare]. And, of course, the present ardency of saber-rattling on North Korea [and against Russia].

Now, against all of this, Bannon has been steadily railing. Attempting to both ‘break with’ and just outright ‘break’ the previous prevailing political consensus that has shaped American politics for well over three decades now.

When it comes to the foreign military adventurism, he’s continually lost friends across Washington for attempting to remind the President that i) this wasn’t what he was elected on [and, indeed, it was the bloody legacy of PREVIOUS Presidents’ offshore entanglements which directly won Trump the Presidency – those areas which swung for him in Ohio etc. are also some of those who’ve been hardest hit by Iraq etc.]; and ii) that ‘military options’ – whether against Assad or Kim Jong Un – simply serve to produce negative outcomes from the perspective of sane and rational US policy [now there’s an oxymoron for you].

And on top of that, he’s continued to be one of the loudest voices inside the Administration when it comes to outright opposing American involvement in those persnickety international trade deals we all spent afternoons marching up and down Queen St to protest over the last few years.

So with all of that in mind … it strikes me as somewhat peculiar that there are so many folk up and down what claims to be the ‘progressive’ end of politics are cheering on Bannon’s march off into the sunset. I mean, I suppose I could understand it if the idea was that it would just bring down the Administration outright. But that seems rather unlikely.

Instead, in reality, despite Bannon’s previous controversial positions in some areas, he represented one of the ‘sanest’ voices around Trump. And more particularly, a direct force of opposition against the sort of hard-neoliberal wheelbarrow agenda being pushed by many of the folk Trump previously railed against [implicitly or directly] who are now apparently running the Republicans’ political efforts.

If you oppose the US turning into more of a Corporate-haven-masquerading-as-a-serious-state, and if you are mortified at the idea of American military power once again making a wasteland and failing utterly to bring about ‘peace’ … then you should be similarly aghast about Bannon leaving the White House.

Now once again. Lest I find the local branch of “AntiFa Aktion” camped outside my house the day after this story is run, it’s probably worthwhile to note that I do not defend absolutely everything which Bannon has ever said and done. I don’t like reasonable swathes of what appears to be his work and his worldview.

But this isn’t about that.

This is about whether I want to live in a world wherein the Trump administration is just ‘bad’ – or instead ‘actively destabilizing the international situation at least partially in pursuit of some sort of Monolithic-Market-Monophysite-Corporate-Motivated-Malevolence agenda”.

Some might say that the Trump administration as we’ve seen it these past 7 months is already a pretty heaping helping of the latter.

They might have a point.

Yet tell me … how does it get BETTER by removing one of the few checks upon that perniciousness.

Oh right. It doesn’t.

And no, before anybody says it, “BUT HILLARY” is NOT a serious answer here. We all know that her previous positions on both international trade and the US armed force which apparently underpins the steady expansion of their neocolonialist economic system would render her similarly objectionable.

Once we got past the posturous gushing about “First Female President” to actually start to assess her and her putative Administration on its actual merits, that is.

So in conclusion … I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some considerable empathy for Bannon at this point. My own previous role in politics – that of attempting to restrain some unabashedly negative sentiments and forces, and instead empower positive elements which occasionally even managed to make their way into actual outcomes … before being messily oustered as part of a long-running battle for the soul of an institution – may very well have clouded the impartiality and certainly the dispassionateness of my assessment of what’s gone on here.

But I stand by the idea that folk crowing about Bannon’s heading into exile are either deplorable sorts rather directly aligned with either of the neoliberal or neocon agendas … or that they’re hoodwinked lefty/liberal/progressive types who have been conditioned by the media etc. to believe that Bannon being forced out would represent some sort of grand and glowing victory , rather than the resumption of an even more oppressive pre-Bannon status quo.

It has been said by a mind far wittier than myself that whilst history doesn’t repeat … it sure does rhyme. The commentator who uttered that forgot to add that on certain occasions, it just outright plagiarizes.

But looking at National’s recent announcement over the weekend of what looks set to be one of its headline election policies, it is pretty hard to escape the conclusion that that’s literally what’s happened here.

I may be young enough to only barely remember the previous National Government, but the first thing which shot through my mind upon hearing Paula Bennett et co do a press conference to attempt to sell ‘boot camps’ for youth offenders was … “we’ve been down this road before”.

For you see, way back in the mists of 2008 – when concerns about nanny-state-ism didn’t literally mean Government MPs eves-dropping on your phone-calls – a recently elevated National Party leader seeking to stamp his mark on ‘law and order’ issues and hopefully win the Prime Minister-ship for the first time, did exactly the same thing.

That man was John Key – and it seems evident now that Bill English, despite not possessing anything like the same levels of thing-masquerading-as-charisma-that-actually-just-means-saying-akshully-a-lot, was taking notes on his predecessor’s path to the hearts, minds, and ballot-boxes of our voting populace.

So this leads to two obvious questions.

First – if the previous policy wasn’t working, then why re-announce it? And second, if the previous policy WAS working … then WHY re-announce it?!

The scheme National rolled out in its first term set up “Military-style Activity Camps” (MACs), which sounds like a school holiday paintball program run by a cosmetics company. These took a pretty small number of the more serious youth offenders (about seventeen over the course of the first two intakes – although with capacity for somewhere in the vicinity of 40 per run), and sought to combine the more traditional ‘military discipline’ style of Reforming Your Youth Offender from the Defence Force with a prolonged period of support from the Ministry of Social Development towards reintegrating program graduates into their community.

Long story short, we don’t even necessarily know if the previous ‘boot camp’ program was notably better than other already-extant schemes the kids might have wound up in – or even, for that matter, whether the 14% of graduates who stopped reoffending is a significant improvement over the number of youth offenders who cease encountering the criminal justice system as they get older precisely *because* they ‘grow up’.

It might have been possible to come to a better determination about the merits (or otherwise) of their scheme, but looking through a succession of comments from learned people on the matter – it appeared that the Government was curiously reluctant to actually put out too much or too detailed ‘hard data’ on its results besides the exceptionally ‘broad brush’ stats cited above.

So in other words, unless there’s some absolutely amazing and cutting-edge research out there which is yet to be released to the public … the National Party’s 2017 Boot Camp proposal is just as much of an ‘experiment’ as their 2008 Boot Camp proposal was. About the only difference that seems to have come to light thus far was Paula Bennett’s statement concerning the Ministry of Social Development’s involvement in the prior iteration of ‘boot camps’ being one of the lead reasons for it being a failure – which is a shame, because on balance, I’d rather suspect that the long-term MSD supportive involvement in a young person’s life would have been one of the positive features of the program due to its rehabilitative rather than punitive functions. Whereas handing the scheme over entirely to the Military, as Bennett’s comment seems to imply, simply appears an opportunity to emphasize the harsher elements of ‘boot-camp’-ism which produced the previous succession of flawed outcomes and ‘fitter offenders’.

Now in terms of just why National’s chosen to announce such a scheme, there are several potential explanations.

One is that with mounting pressure on Bill English over the Todd Barclay scandal – himself a putative ‘youthful’ offender – the Nats have chosen to announce something ‘big’ [or, at the very least, big-sounding] in a bid to ‘jangle keys’ as a distraction from both this and “Jacinda Mania”.

So with that in mind, they’ve chosen to go with the OTHER side of the law and order coin. Namely, Popular Punitive Penal-ism. Because while on the face of it, one thousand eight hundred extra police is probably going to do a much better job at taking offenders [whether adult or ‘fun sized’] off the streets, it lacks that certain visceral vindictiveness of actually getting to say you’re going to get so hard on young criminals that you’ll be throwing them to the military to sort out.

It also has the additional advantage of being a seemingly simple solution to the complaints of every dairy owner who’s been done over recently about how young offenders aren’t deterred by the criminal justice system because they apparently know they’ll just be let off due to their age.

But the trouble with ‘simple solutions’ [particularly the ‘seemingly’ simple ones] is that they’re often neither simple nor a solution once examined more closely. And given the rather questionable ‘evidence’ on the success of ‘boot-camp’ style regimens in the past here, there’s a very real chance that this most recent proposal will similarly wind up coming a little unstuck upon further scrutiny or sometime after its actual implementation.

This is rather concerning, because of the potential impact this might have on *other* policy-proposals that might *actually* make a difference in the lives of our young people.

But also, other much more evidentiary-based uses of the military in partnership with other government agencies to turn young lives around may also suffer – whether due to reputational association, or decisions concerning the allocation of resources.

But of course, the Government voted that bill down despite not ever really being able to give a coherent reason why.

It now appears that one of their motivations was to avoid any ‘stealing of thunder’ from their latest policy announcement.

Which leads me to conclude that the only thing that’s HARDER BETTER FASTER STRONGER from National at present – is the mounting feeling of desperation they’re experiencing in their bid to cling on for dear life into a Fourth Term.

In the coming days, as the vultures of various news outlets attempt to pick clean the carcass of a once-indomitable woman in their pursuit of sensationalized post-mortems, you are going to hear a lot about how Turei’s transgressions in the court of public opinion rendered her resignation both unavoidable and vital for the Green Party’s ongoing survival.

The reasonings advanced for this will probably inevitably touch on the Reid Research and UMR polls which came out last night – and attempt to use the Greens’ results in these as decisive ‘proof’ that Turei’s admissions and subsequent conduct have irrevocably harmed the Green Party.

But if you take more than a cursory glance at the evidence we have before us, a rather different pattern emerges. Namely, that instead of Metiria Turei nearly singlehandedly killing the Greens through napalm crossed with Agent Orange publicity … the herbicide in question is better termed “The Ardern Effect”.

Which means that the seemingly obvious characterization of what’s happened as being the result of a strongly resurgent Labour taking back voters they’ve lost to the Greens over the last few cycles due to the former’s weakness, has been glossed over by a blood-frenzied commentariat absolutely mad-keen to squelch the facts into fitting a ‘convenient’ punishment-based narrative.

After all – one of the most intoxicating pleasures of political journalism is, surely, to be able to crow “I Told You So!” in often ill-deserved vindication.

For much of the last week, I’d been watching the increasingly frenzied baying from various quarters of our commentariat and political establishment in relation to Metiria Turei, and the concluding lines of T.S. Eliot’s excellent ‘Difficulties of a Statesman’ just kept ringing in my head:

“Oh Mother
What shall I cry?
We demand a committee, a representative committee, a committee of investigation

RESIGN RESIGN RESIGN”

Why? Because this has pretty much been the wall-to-wall imperative issued to her from a bewildering array of quarters. And, interestingly, one which only seemed to intensify when it appeared last month that the Greens’ polling had actuallygone UP in response to Turei’s openness and honesty about her previous benefit malfeasance. It’s almost as if the various figures involved – men of unimpeachable moral credentials such as David Seymour, Mike Hosking, Cameron Slater [google it yourself – I’m not linking him here], and some guy who writes for the National Business Review – couldn’t stand that the New Zealand public were .. shock horror .. actually a little bit understanding that something which happened in your twenties shouldn’t continue to mark you for life and destroy your career.

But then, yesterday afternoon, something changed. We went inside the span of a few hours from Turei’s position seeming to be staunchly defended by her Party … through to her announcing that she’d finally decided to pack it in and vacate the co-leadership.

Yet while it would be difficult in the extreme to presume that an absolute deluge of intentionally negative media coverage for an extended period might have NO impact on the prospective electoral behavior of the average voter … I couldn’t help but note the rather glaring additional figures which suggested something altogether rather different was going on.

Look at the figures for New Zealand First in both polls. Down from 13% by 3.8% to 9.2% in the Reid, and from 16% by 8% to 8% in the UMR.

It is presumably a mark of maturity [no pun intended] that nobody attempted to use the above polling data to suggest that it was axiomatically imperative for Winston to resign from leading New Zealand First.

And that’s at least partially because there was an eminently obvious explanation for why New Zealand First had suddenly lost so much potential support.

Namely, the Labour Party as direct beneficiaries of the “Jacinda Effect” had absolutely rocketed up – increasing by 9% from 24% to 33% in the Reid Research poll, and by 13% from 23% to 36% in the UMR.

So why was New Zealand First evidently trading votes with the Labour Party? Simple. Because many (hitherto) New Zealand First voters seriously dislike the present Government and are looking for a strong voice to challenge it. Up until now, thanks to a somewhat dismal parade of Labourites for the last nine years, that voice has been Winston Peters; and it is my personal belief that many of the formerly Labour (or even Greens) voters who’d decided to give NZF a strategic or protest vote in 2011 (one of the reasons we made it back into Parliament) had actually decided to stick around in more serious and earnest terms for the election after that. Certainly, enough of them seemed to sign up as members. They then found themselves being joined in more recent times by an ever-expanding cavalcade of ex-soft-Labour defectors whose recently-won loyalty was perhaps somewhat more fickle.

With Ardern now providing an apparently-electable face for the Labour Party, a number of these people – but importantly, not all – have evidently decided to decamp back to their starting point. Hence NZ First dropping somewhere between a third and half of the Party’s support according to the most recent round of polls.

Because in many ways – and in direct contrast to the situation of 2002 – New Zealand First’s strength was always going to be at least somewhat contingent on the ongoing weakness of Labour.

None of this is especially controversial – although in a spirit of completeness, it’s probably worth mentioning the alternate possibility advanced to me by a right-wing acquaintance that NZ First has also been bleeding more recently acquired ex-Nat support back to National due to these voters becoming ‘spooked’ by the now rather more realistic possibility of a Labour-NZF(-Green) Government thanks to the boost in Labour’s fortunes.

But as bad as this tidal movement of support was always going to be for New Zealand First in the present clime … for the Green Party, it was almost inevitably going to be much worse. For whereas New Zealand First’s relative base of enthusiasm on the political spectrum appears to be a seriously movable feast (at one election hewing considerably into National’s vote – two cycles later, taking almost exclusively off Labour), the Greens’ support has always been pretty consistent in its location.

Specifically, living atop ‘borrowed land’ appropriated by hook or by crook from their prospective partners in Government, the Labour Party. What this means in practice is that as the Greens’ dizzying ascent to double-digit electoral returns was a direct result of the Labour Party’s ongoing slow-motion collapse … once this latter trend started to reverse itself, so too would the Greens’ positive poll-figures.

We can chart the potential path of the Greens’ future from this point by looking back over the six electoral cycles we’ve had since their first [post-Alliance] standalone election in 1999. I won’t bore you with the detailed comparisons and statistical analysis, but suffice to say the Green Party getting double-digit figures on Election Night is not only a ‘new’ phenomenon (occurring in only the last two elections) – but one which has only eventuated following Labour’s drop below the 30% mark.

Prior to 2011, they seemed to be stuck at somewhere between five and seven percent – on one occasion, Labour’s watershed year of 1999, not even making it across the 5% threshold on Election Night and having to face a nerve-wracking wait for the Special Votes to come in. With the sole exception of a marginal increase in vote in 2002 [where they gained 1.8% to top out at 7%], whenever Labour’s done well, the Greens’ vote has suffered.

Now, I don’t necessarily think that the Greens are going to find themselves in serious danger of falling under the 5% threshold this time around. Even if Labour absolutely storms into the mid-high thirty percents on Election Night, it’s still quite likely that the Greens will make it back in comfortably. Their previous efforts in the much-derided ‘March Into The Suburbs’ have helped to diversify their support-demographics out beyond those so easily re-absorbed by Labour – and even availed them in picking up what I call “Remuera Carbon Credit Guilt-Assuaging” votes [i.e. folk who’ve voted National or ACT for their electorate vote – but who recognize that these parties aren’t great on environmental and social/redistributive matters and so give their party vote to the Greens as an ‘offset’].

But to cut a long story short [sadly, exactly the same thing that appears to have happened with Turei’s political career :/ ], as soon as Labour started picking up momentum a pretty sizeable Greens drop was pretty much inevitable. We can tell that it’s the Jacinda Effect rather than a recoiling response to a ‘Metiria Affect’ in part because NZ First suffered almost as much in the polls despite not [presently] having any active scandals (arguably something of a rarity for NZ First going into an election, some might say). And, as mentioned above, because prior to Labour’s seismic resurrection, the Greens experienced a poll BOOST off the back of Turei’s revelations … up until they didn’t, anyway.

Importantly, I’m not saying that Turei’s ongoing quagmire’d imbroglio had no role to play in the Greens’ recent negative fortunes. Simply that this was ONE factor amidst several, and pretty patently obviously not the most important one (although for obvious reasons, inarguably the most publicized – not least because it’s a simple and straightforward narrative). The media is almost ALWAYS going to talk its own role up in these sorts of things, not least because our commentariat loves to feel itself important – to make THEMSELVES the story rather than reporting it, as an errant MP of mine once quipped.

Unfortunately, this has created a situation wherein one of the most tragic effects of Turei’s choice to resign is the way that the narrative around the resignation is now going to ‘set’ in the popular consciousness. If Turei had remained on, it is an academic question for the ages whether the Greens’ polling would have stabilized in the longer term. Certainly, the immediate comparative example of Winston refusing to budge despite presiding over a Party that pretty much wound up wiped out in each of 1999 and 2008 suggests that if one is playing the ‘long game’, even seemingly utterly insurmountable tarnishment can be overcome.

But now … for most people – and especially most political commentators – the coterminous timing of Turei’s resignation with this disastrous evening of polls ‘seals the deal’.

An ‘evil deed’ occurred, and retribution came from an angry electorate, eventually leading to the alleged perpetrator being cast down in ignominy.

The part that’s missed, of course, is that the “evil deed” in question was a sustained barrage of negative commentary from certain figures who were absolutely hell-bent on creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of Green Party unpopularity in order to force a scalping of Turei for the spectacle-value.

The “retribution”, therefore, was potentially misdirected. Not least because what’s being marketed as ‘punishment’ by the voting populace for Turei’s past … is, in fact, in many or even most cases nothing of the sort.

But does any of this actually matter? Some might suggest not. Turei’s already resigned – and is presumably about as likely to come back between now and the Election to a leadership position with the Greens as her former colleagues Kennedy Graham and David Clendon are to her Caucus.

But for the sake of ‘honour’, I think that it does. Turei has had a pretty decent Parliamentary career – and the Green Party of today owes her a great deal for helping them to break out first towards and then above that magical ‘double digit’ mark. Whatever the sins of her past, surely they found themselves outweighed with many a meritorious deed over the intervening fifteen years she’s been an MP.

It is therefore quite important that the record – finally – be set straight on what’s happened here.

It is left as an exercise to the discerning reader to judge for themselves what is more tragic:

A flawed figure who comes unstuck due to their own questionable judgement just when they might be needed the most … or one who finds themselves the semi-hapless victim of circumstance, tossed and buffeted by vast and rather impersonal forces over which they could only ultimately exert almost exactly as much influence as Canute upon the tide.

In this instance, the truth probably lies somewhere between the two.

Although I somehow doubt you’ll hear too many of the as-yet blood-bathed media presenting it that way.

They’re still too busy eating the entrails rather than reading them.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/08/10/jacinda-effect-metiria-affect-why-the-greens-polls-are-down/feed/23THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES – What Ardern/Davis Means For NZF & MANAhttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/08/02/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-what-arderndavis-means-for-nzf-mana/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/08/02/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-what-arderndavis-means-for-nzf-mana/#commentsTue, 01 Aug 2017 19:25:41 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=90054
By the end of this week, a quantity of ink fit to fill Lake Rotoiti – and sufficient electrons to power Tiwai Point for about the space of half an hour – will no doubt have been marshalled in service of commentating upon what Jacinda Ardern’s ‘shock’ elevation to the leadership of Labour means for that party. And, for that matter, the prospects of actually securing ‘progressive’ governance in 2017.

The key questions are whether Ardern will be able to grow Labour’s vote – and, just as importantly, whether that growth will come from voters who’ve recently chosen to switch over to The Greens … or from parties beyond the MoU that’s somehow apparently at the heart of the politics of ‘hope’ these days.

Those aforementioned analyses by other luminaries of the Beltway people-watching bird-blind will focus upon the above questions.

My attention is on something different.

Namely, what the promotion of Ardern and Davis to the Leadership might mean for two parties which look set to cause an ‘upset’ later this year – New Zealand First, and MANA.

We shall start with the simpler query – what effect Davis as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party will likely have in Te Tai Tokerau.

There is an argument, to be sure, that the additional prominence and mana afforded to Labour’s Deputy Leader will provide a potential boost for Davis in what’s set to be quite a hard-fought campaign against the previous representative of the seat, Hone Harawira.

But along with a position that is perhaps more commensurate with his abilities than those he has previously enjoyed in Labour, comes an interesting elevation in list position. In specia, according to rule 8.45.1 of the Labour Party’s Constitution, Davis is now set to be the party’s number two candidate.

This is potentially problematic for the previously arranged trajectory of Davis’ campaign. As the reason he’d previously chosen to not be on the List in the first place was in order to attempt to counter the ‘strategic vote-splitting’ to get ‘two for the price of one’ which has come to characterize the thought-process of quite a number of voters in the Maori Seats. The thinking prior to this year’s Election was that you could quite happily improve the representation of your electorate through giving your candidate vote to the local non-Labour hopeful [either Maori Party or MANA] to help them get in – whilst giving your party vote to Labour to attempt to ensure that the electorate’s Labour candidate would also get in via the Party List. Labour sought to put a stop to that by having its entire slate of Maori Seat incumbents [i.e. not Tamati Coffey – who’s in a potentially rather ambitious position of number 34 at present] stand as electorate-only candidates; in order to ‘force’ Maori Roll voters to vote for them if they wanted them, rather than vote-splitting in a way that would advantage Labour’s opponents in Maori politics.

Harawira therefore had something of an uphill fight on his hands – going up against, as he was, a positively regarded and competent-appearing incumbent who’d quite literally be out of Parliament if the local electors did not back him. The notion that Davis is now ‘safe’ [insofar as anybody on Labour’s list is actually ‘safe’ at this point – there are somewhat reputable projections based on present polling which has them struggling to get even a single List MP …] regardless of what happens in Te Tai Tokerau may instead convince TTT voters that their interests are better served by maximizing their Parliamentary ‘firepower’ – through backing Hone to get him back into Parliament.

And certainly, particularly given Harawira’s firebrand record, and strong advocacy work [when he was absent in Parliament – he appears to have almost invariably been performing constituency work up North in one form or another], there’s a pretty strong argument that his being back in Parliament *alongside* Davis would represent an unvarnished positive for the people of one of New Zealand’s most marginalized constituencies.

So all up … have yesterday’s events helped MANA’s chances of re-entering Parliament? Potentially.

Political events in 2017 are now well beyond a phase wherein seemingly anyone sane would actually place money on their outcome … but I’d say the odds are now better than even of Harawira returning to Parliament in September thanks to this result.

An interesting question going forward will be whether Labour seeks to persist with their un-listed number strategy for Davis despite the wording of their own constitution. I have not engaged in an in-depth reading of the Labour Party’s constitution to see if their national decision-making body has the power to override their constitution seemingly at-will in the same way the NZ First Party’s constitution does.

Meanwhile, where things get unutterably more complex is attempting to augur just how Ardern/Davis will likely impact New Zealand First over the course of this campaign.

It would be tempting to conclude that due to the severely different constituencies and style between Ardern and Winston, that there would be ‘no change’ in NZ First’s fortunes as a result of what’s happened. However, I do not necessarily believe that this is accurate.

For a start, Davis has a strong appeal on both ‘law and order’ and ‘regional development’ issues – areas that NZ First has attempted to stake out as cornerstone territory over the course of the last Parliamentary Term, and the last few weeks in particular.

However, on the other hand, given Ardern’s overall appearance as something of a ‘Grey Lynn Liberal’, it is perhaps possible that voters out there in Regional/Rural New Zealand who might otherwise have been considering Labour [I’m sure there are more than a few], may instead decide that – particularly in concert with The Greens – that Labour is potentially a ‘bridge too far’ for their support this time around.

The natural beneficiary of this trend, should it eventuate, will of course be New Zealand First. As out in those electoral ‘hill country’ seats, where ELSE are people angry about the Government but leery about Urban Liberalism going to go?

On the other hand, it is possible that any ‘revitalization’ of Labour’s fortunes and image which occurs as a result of the changing of the guard and/or deckchairs atop a certain large ocean-going vessel may in fact wind up leading folk who want ‘strong opposition’ away from supporting the party actually presently LEADING the Opposition [i.e. New Zealand First], and back towards the organization which holds somewhat nominal claim to the Parliamentary position associated with same.

There are also an array of projections about what Ardern/Davis taking over from Little[/Ardern] may mean in terms of Coalition prospects in the event that Labour and the Greens are actually in a position to form a Government with New Zealand First in seven weeks‘ time. Some suspect that Ardern’s relative youth and alleged ‘inexperience’ may make it easier for NZ First to secure concessions from the Labour-Greens bloc [potentially up to and including what’s rapidly become a meme at this point – in the form of asking for, and receiving, the Prime Minister-ship]. Although to that I can only note that I’m not entirely sure what’s changed from the start of the week – Ardern has actually been in Parliament three years LONGER than Andrew Little, for a start.

In any case, one of the dominant questions on my newsfeed this morning basically ran “What on EARTH is Labour Thinking?!”

With the above thoughts outlined, perhaps the better question ought be what Hone and Winston are saying privately as of right now.

Every Election, there’s a seat or several whose outcomes are fantastically interesting to watch. This is because they are the ones that are actually balanced upon the knife-edge – where a few dozen votes one way or ‘tuther will actually help to determine the shape and course of our politics for years or even decades to come.Customarily, attention is placed upon a handful of ‘well-known’ ‘hot-spots’. I hardly need to cite their names: Ohariu, Te Tai Tokerau and Auckland Central spring instantly to mind, and we can probably add other ‘swing’ seats like Maungakiekie to that list. Further, as developments in Northland in early 2015 so amply demonstrate … sometimes even the perceived ‘safe’ or outright ‘fortress’ seats can be the ones where History finds its ‘first draft’ authoring happening.But there are other, lesser known battlegrounds who – whilst they might not immediately spring to mind – will be just as important in directing where things will go from here in our politics.One of these is the Lower North Island seat of Wairarapa.Now, conventional wisdom holds that this is a relatively ‘safe’ Blue seat. As the old saying goes, you could stand a stuffed poodle in the electorate – and provided it was wearing a National rosette, it would probably win.This metaphor has found new currency in the person of Alastair Scott – who manages to combine the classical Nat ‘born to rule’ mentality [i.e. the ‘poodle’ genetics and hairdo] with a complete lack of actual action or interest in the affairs of his Electorate [as in – he’s “stuffed” in one or possibly two senses].What this means in practice is, serious political observers are asking searching questions about whether we might once again see this seat change to a colour that’s something other than Blue.And to be fair, it wasn’t that long ago [a mere twelve years] that this seat was the relatively safe demesne of Georgina Byer. I won’t say it was a “Labour Seat”, because from those I’ve talked to it appears more that Wairarapians were motivated to vote for the candidate and their own personal merits rather than those of her Party. [A fact which may be further adduced by Byer consistently scoring several thousand more candidate votes than Labour picked up for Party votes – a pattern which promptly reversed itself as soon as Labour attempted to stand a non-Byer candidate in that Electorate in 2005].But looking forward to later this year, it is not the resurrection of Labour fortunes that I am predicting – although there seems little doubt that the serious challenger to Scott shares one feature in common with Byer … that of also being a former Mayer of Carterton.However, for those of us seeking to roll National’s Alaistar Scott, there is a bit of a fly in the ointment. One other than Scott himself, I mean.You see, the Wairarapa has hitherto fallen prey to what we might term “Epsom-Ohariu-Central” disease. A most curious malady, wherein the combined vote-totals for the two or more non-Government parties easily exceeds the figure which the questionably popular Nat(-supporting) reprobate gets … but due to somebody’s pig-headedness leading to vote-splitting – the ACT, United Future, or Nat candidate keeps winning regardless.Ordinarily, the ‘spoiler’ figure is the Greens’ local representative. In Ohariu, for instance, at literally every single election since the seat came back into existence, Peter Dunne would have been GONE but for whichever errant Green standard-bearer was running taking votes away from the Labour Party’s candidate. And in Auckland Central likewise – at every election since Labour last held the seat under Judith Tizard, it’s been a strong Greens vote that’s rendered the Labourites unable to overtake Nikki Kaye. Epsom, of course, is a little bit different – in that it’s the National candidate rather than Labour who’s triennially robbed of a victory he quite plainly doesn’t want – but is otherwise an instance of the exact same pattern.Northland nearly fell victim to the same disease in 2015 – but with Labour quite sensibly deciding to functionally pull their candidate [thus reducing Labour’s electorate votes from 8969 the year before to 1380 in the by-election], such a fate was happily avoided. And the course of New Zealand politics arguably shifted rather more than slightly towards a better future with a more marginalized National Party. Hopefully, anyway.All of which bring us back handily to Wairarapa later this year.Now, a cursory analysis of electoral results for the last twenty years shows that Labour has CONSISTENTLY been losing both Electorate and Party votes there since their peak in 1999. Admittedly, they continued to hold the seat right up until 2005 – but with the departure of the aforementioned Georgina Byer, apart from one brief relative surge of a mighty 837 candidate votes between 2005 and 2008, their overall trend has just been down, down, down. Finally falling into the single-digit thousands at the last election with their this year’s candidate, Kieran McAnulty.They’re now on 9,452 and 25.41% for the candidate vote [a slippage of 6.23% from the previous election], and 7,712 and 20.56% for the party vote [minus 2.74% from 2011].Or, in other words, the odds of McAnulty (who I hear’s a nice guy, by the way) somehow managing to make up the quite substantial 6,771 and 18.20% gap between himself and National’s Alaister Scott … are perhaps rather long. Particularly given the observable swing against Labour in both rural seats and nationwide that some pundits have noted.But hark. A Challenger appears. Looking at Ron Mark’s results for the same election – 8,630 votes and 23.20% [both rather mark-ed increases on NZ First’s previous results in the electorate and part of an ongoing upward trend] – it’s quite frankly re-mark-able that he managed such an incredibly strong result despite only announcing his candidacy a mere twenty five days out from the Election. This is particularly the case when we consider that his two main opponents [one each from Labour and National – the good old “coca-cola/pepsi tag-team”] had been actively campaigning and engaged in the electorate for most of the previous three years.Now imagine just how well Ron is poised to do, given he’s been an MP for the Wairarapa for the last three years – and the number of issues like local opposition to forced amalgamation of local body authorities, and fighting for improved infrastructure, where he’s been able to take the leading representing the views and voices of his constituents. Indeed, looking at his intensive efforts on this front over the past term, you’d probably be forgiven for thinking he actually already WAS the elected electorate MP for the area.Adding to this, we have the fact that by almost any poll or talkback radio reconnaissance, New Zealand First is absolutely surging. This is particularly the case in rural seats, as it should be, and I would dare say that a Government-neglected region like the Wairarapa will quite likely be leading the pack.I therefore think it’s pretty fair to state that Ron’s in with a serious shot. Not least because of the striking number of folks down there who appear to be considerably more enthused about Ron than they are about Winston or the rest of the Party. I had a hard time keeping track of the number of people who straight-up told us when we were doorknocking there last year that they were reluctant to vote for New Zealand First, but would have absolutely no problem supporting Ron when it came to the crunch.Or, in other words, I’d hazard that Ron Mark is far more capable of drawing in soft-Nat support than Kieran McAnulty is. And the stats from 2014 showing Ron doing twice as well as McAnulty when it came to bringing in votes from outside his own party go some ways towards proving this.So with all of this in mind, you’d think that the immediately obvious thing for Labour to do if they were really interested in removing the National party carbuncle from the seat … would be to hang up their shoes and run a party-vote only campaign. Doing as they so successfully did in Northland in 2015, and allowing Our Man Ron a clear shot at taking down the local Nat baronobody.But unfortunately, there are few things more prone to self-defeating fits of ‘pride’ than a man backed into a corner – and as far as I can tell, the local Labour Party just isn’t getting the message. Instead, they’re calling in favours and rattling chains to try and get as high a profile of support-crew for McAnulty as they possibly can. Which thus far amounts to two local Mayors – Lynn Patterson, the incumbent Mayor of Masterton and one of her predecessors, Bob Francis – attempting to rally otherwise flagging support for McAnulty’s campaign.It’s a free country and a free election, of course (subject to the limits of the Electoral Finance Act and occasional legal threats for playing a song which demeans the government) – but those Labour-people out there attempting to desperately corral Wairarapians into the polling booths for McAnulty really do need to sit down and ask themselves whether what they’re doing is really going to help unseat Alastair Scott come September.Particularly as an argument can quite easily be mounted that attempting to ‘rope in’ well-known local figures on one’s side when you’re flagging in the polls in a manner that suggests you’ve Red Peaked … may very well be read as a sign of implicit desperation.Now obviously, when it comes to matters electoral, i’m slightly biased. I genuinely do not like the National Party, and have not infrequently been of the opinion that some parts of the Labour Party can be little better.But to accomplish the great and mighty deed of rolling National in the Wairarapa (a victory which will have flow-on strategic effects for the rest of the country), it is necessary for ALL us non-Government supporters to work together. We’ve got to unite behind the one candidate in this electorate who’s actually capable of drawing votes from Labour, National, New Zealand First and elsewhere in order to actually outnumber Scott’s share of the vote.In short, we’ve got to send the Nats a message. Together. With one voice. Namely – that on September 23rd … Alaistar Scott is Gone!

I realized something the other day. New Zealand First is basically the Kiwi Politics equivalent to Motorhead. And while I’d not be entirely surprised as to which of Winston or Lemmy would be more potentially insulted by a comparison to the other … even looking beyond the black-and-white colour-scheme, snaggly-toothed attitude, and frequent fan-base amongst West Auckland, there are some rather overt similarities.

Prime among these is that the stereotypical statement on Motorhead’s several decades of musical output which I’ve now heard from any number of musical critics – that they’ve basically released the same album over and over again for much of the last thirty years – also applies just as evenly to New Zealand First seemingly every electoral cycle.

Standing there on Sunday afternoon listening to the latest in a long line of Winston Convention-Campaign stump-speeches, this struck me as perhaps the best characterization for what I was witnessing.

Consider several of the key points of policy which he announced: a referendum on the Maori Seats, another referendum on the size of Parliament, and the movement away from Westpac to having KiwiBank as the Government’s official banker.

There are some tweaks inherent in each of them [for example, the referendum on the Maori Seats policy now makes no mention of it being a plebiscite only for Maori; and the commentary on reducing the size of Parliament has moved from attempting to uphold a previous referendum result that’s now nearly two decades old – and to seeking a new mandate for the policy entirely] … but I had heard it all before.

The pattern repeats with many of the other ‘big name’ bottom-line announcements we’ve seen from New Zealand First over the course of the most recent campaign cycle are similar re-rubs on old classics. The call to massively bolster our police numbers, for instance, is a fairly direct encore-reprise of something which NZ First both promised – and, more importantly, successfully delivered on – in 2005 immediately before entering into a C&S agreement with the Labour Party. [Which uh .. happened to shut out The Greens after quite a prolonged period of bad-blood and mutual bollocking between the parties. Which appears to be playing upon the mind of at least one of our organizations rather much this month]

And as applies the other substantive comments to be found in Winston’s speech yesterday, I literally found myself describing it to an associate who was also there as being a cursory play-through of “Winston’s Greatest Hits”. It was all there: forceful statements on immigration [although interestingly nuanced, perhaps in response to the Greens’ immanent critique. More on that later]; serious commitments to economic justice through opposing foreign ownership and corporate raids disguised as investment; anguished howls about unrepresentative bureaucrats and other (not always unelected) decision-makers being seriously out of touch with the opinion of the ordinary Kiwi; up-to-the-minute cutting references to his opponents; and an absolute, evangelist’s insistence upon rolling back both Rogernomics and Ruthanasia in order to institute a proper, post-Neoliberal economic paradigm.

Obviously, that last one was mostly phrased in words of not more than two syllables and bereft of such ‘technocratic’ jargon.

But lest my Kilmister comparison be received as an insult … that is not necessarily the spirit in which it was intended.

The plain fact about Motorhead’s discography – and why they continued to be such a powerful force for so many decades up until Lemmy’s untimely death as part of the huge wave of celebrity-mortalities around 2016 – is that nobody especially minded that they were doing the same thing over and over again every three years ago. Because they not only did it well [with enough subtle tweaks to ensure it wasn’t *literally* the same album being re-released over and over], but because too much ‘innovation’ would arguably have moved the band a little too far from what it actually *was* in the first place. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and all that. We *wanted* to hear Lemmy belt out his old classics in amidst ‘new’ material that could have been written the same decade or even the same day as the standards.

So it is with Winston.

In whose case, to be fair to him, he is arguably quite justified in re-hashing many of the same themes and talking points Election after Election … because in many cases, serious action hasn’t actually been undertaken by any other party to meaningfully address these issues.

In other words, ‘the repeats will continue, until circumstances improve’.

But having said that, there were some interesting differences between Winston Peters Circa 2017 and previous commentaries running right the way back to when I first heard him give a Convention Address what seems like half a lifetime ago in 2010.

Then, the clear vibe was that we were “the resistance”. And that, not to put too fine a point on it, the forces being “resisted” weren’t just economic or those of the political establishment [‘beltway’ or otherwise]. Instead, the very nature of causality – of political physics, and the received and applied common wisdom of just about every two-bit commentariat-hack in the land – was what we were seeking to struggle against. To create something unprecedented as a historico-political moment by getting back into Parliament from penury.

And, as it happened, we did. 2011-era Winston taking on the air of a triumphant pro-democracy rebel rolling into some Arab despot’s capital somewhere. That’s not mere illustrative hyperbole on my part – he literally got up at our 2011 Convention and promised a “Pacific Summer” to follow the “Arab Spring”, and doing to our Government in a matter of weeks what it had taken the people of Libya some months if not years to do.

Considering the oblique state of Libya today, wherein reasonably broad swathes of the country seem far worse off now than they ever were under Gaddaffi, it is perhaps for the best that nobody other than some of us grumbly old veterans remember such things.

But if 2009-2011 Winston thought of his political movement as being akin to a guerilla-insurgent band ‘off up in the hills’ [also a Winston quote – at that point he was comparing himself to Fidel Castro’s forces about to take on Batista]; then 2013-2014 Winston was putting on a rather different set of tropes. Here, it was the rallying-cry of a force which had made it back into the heart of Kiwi Politics – and which was absolutely adamant that our voice would be heard. The commentary at the time from those On High was based around the perceived probability of either being able to get an excellent deal by working with others … or standing strong – alone – and still finding our vocative exploration of principles decidedly hard to ignore.

2017 Winston, by contrast, is seriously different. It’s no longer a case of attempting to storm back into Parliament. And even if some might argue that the desire to ‘do the impossible’ [according to the previously received wisdom, anyway] is still at the heart of his Convention-Day Message … nowadays, when it comes to his stated desire for New Zealand First to *be* the Government rather than merely form a bolt-on part thereof … well, it’s not like these days anybody’s seriously ruling it out.

Will it happen? Who knows. But like I say – it was definitely an interesting change of vibe. [Also rather amusing for me personally, as I’ve been pushing the whole “New Zealand First Government” line internally for some years now, as a habitual response to the travails and serious risks of stuffing up the Party’s long-term prospects by entering into coalition with certain other [presently larger] groups. Not, of course, that I’m suggesting anybody seriously high-up listened…]

The mood on the Convention-Room Floor seemed to absolutely lap this up. And I can well understand it. Many of these people, these loyal and tireless campaigners par excellence, have been going to these things for years. Some of them, apparently, have been following Winston round the place since long before there even WAS a New Zealand First. [I’m not kidding – part-way through his speech, Winston paused to acknowledge a couple who’d apparently been on one of his first selection panels in 1978]

So it’s well appreciable that they’d today be relishing the thought of their electoral ‘moment in the sun’ – and the prospect of all of those other folk from all of those other parties who’ve spent a good portion of the last decade mocking and deriding New Zealand First … well, the shoe’ll certainly be on the other foot, won’t it.

That last remark presumably also helps to explain the near frenzied consternation which presently seems to be emitting from the Greens this past month. Other than some of my more .. twisty conspiracy theories about the Green Party almost seeking to intentionally throw the 2017 Election so as to try and overtake Labour for ‘lead left party’ status in 2020, I don’t think there’s a better explanation to be easily had.

They’re flailing around attempting to land rhetorical blows on New Zealand First in a manner that’s rather questionable for their overall electoral prospects … in part to attempt to assuage the opinions of a certain portion of their activist-base who evidently threatened to go limp [‘going rogue’ possibly being too strong of a word] if nothing was done, but also due to an increasing feeling of ‘desperation’ as to ‘what to do about Winston’ leading to political-rhetoric kitchen-sinkery as a cap-handed form of allegedly ‘finesse’ attack.

But what makes this interesting, however, is not the Green Party attempting a re-run of a previous tactic of theirs which has earlier backfired spectacularly [Rod Donald’s campaign of comparing Winston to Hitler in 2004-2005 was one of the factors cited in locking the Greens out of Government following that Election] – but instead, the remarkable restraint which Winston showed today in *not* biting back.

I went in there fully prepared for a boisterous bevvy of bruising remarks about dope-smoking radicals engaged in sociological treason. Some of them even directed towards the Greens rather than a past life of yours truly.

Instead, what we got was measured criticism of the Greens in the same sentence as rarking up of Labour and National; and generalized castigations directed at nobody-in-particular-but-you-know about how ‘the real racists’ in New Zealand Politics were presumably those who’d allowed in upwards of seventy thousand people per year without first ensuring there was adequate provision of housing, schools, healthcare, infrastructure, and other elements of state spending for them once they got here.

It was, I have to say, a pretty decent subversion of multiple expectations; as well as interestingly harmonizing Winston with the rhetorical position of the Greens on the issue – namely, that ‘scapegoating’ migrants is the wrong end of the problem to be blaming when it’s quite clearly a series of failures of political and economic management that have produced the deleterious circumstances we’re presently experiencing in correlation with the immigration boom.

Now having said that – words are pretty, and guitar solos are amazing … but what does it all mean?

There was a definite and pervasive ‘mood for change’ from many of the people I spoke to at Convention. A keen and keening awareness that the dominant politico-economic paradigm of New Zealand for some thirty three years now – and which has reached a recent apotheosis under National after several terms of moderation under Clark – just simply isn’t working and ought be disposed of forthwith.

No seriously detailed plan was presented for how this might yet occur; and in the post-meeting discussion I had with a comrade, it was suggested that to actually attempt doing so would require several terms uninterrupted of New Zealand First dominated [or, indeed, exclusive] Government.

The issue, then, is obvious. For all of the strident talk from Party Grandees about how New Zealand First will be able to extract an incredibly high price from either National or Labour should we go into coalition with one of them … I would find it frankly incredible if what Winston is proposing would be seriously deliverable in government with either. A coalition with National devoted to ending Neoliberalism would require the blue party to become so unrecognizable in comparison to its present (degenerated) state that it may as well become almost a new party. And whilst on paper the Labour Party is rather closer to this objective than the Nats, there are still somewhat strong reasons to outwardly suspect that this path, too, would lead to severely sub-optimal outcomes. One need look no further than the fiscal responsibility conditions which both Labour and the Greens signed up to as part of their Memorandum of Understanding to see that even the nominal ‘lefty’ option for Governing partners are pretty fundamentally wedded to the underlying strictures and politico-psychological terrain of neoliberalism.

Hence, presumably, the emphasis upon New Zealand First *being* the Government rather than merely supporting one through Confidence & Supply. That’s fine. Although the odds of New Zealand First hitting perhaps twenty five percent in this Election – whilst not totally implausible [which shows just how askew from conventional expectations even a year ago we’re at] – are still perhaps a bit of a long-shot.

Still, as the old saying goes – when shooting for the Moon, even if one misses, the arrow will still fall among the stars. [My inner cynic notes that, parabolistic trajectories being what they are, it’s more often a case of ‘what goes up, must come down’ … but I digress]

And so with that in mind, there remains a rather strong argument that a decently sized New Zealand First represents some ‘electoral insurance’ for the political situation post-2017.

This is because regardless of whether Labour-Greens-NZ First or NZ First-National eventuates, we wind up with a significant shift to the left from the Government we have in power presently.

Perhaps not the most convincing of arguments … but then, nobody ever said that slightly remixed reissues of releases from 21 years ago were guaranteed to be hits.

[Author’s note: For the last several years, my coverage of New Zealand First’s annual Conventions for The Daily Blog has been done in something of a dual-hatted manner – in that I was both there for the full weekend as a Delegate, as well as in my journalistic capacity for TDB. Due to factors beyond my control, this year I only attended a small portion of Sunday’s proceedings : and only with my “Journalistic’ cap on. I mention this not in the hopes of suggesting a lessened bias on my part, but rather as an explanation for why my coverage of Convention is perhaps less fulsome than usual].

I’ve taken awhile off commenting on a .. certain area of New Zealand Politics for personal reasons; but looking at my newsfeed for the past 24 hours, it’s pretty clear a number of things need to be said about the Green Party’s recent comments on New Zealand First.The first thing I’d like to acknowledge is that yup, some NZ First MPs and personnel have said some pretty stupid things in years past. I hardly need to re-run the particular incidences. No shortage of other people with particular agendas have already done so for me over the day.But contrary to what some ultra-liberal folk would have you believe, it’s possible to have a conversation around immigration policy which focuses on what’s best for the country – whether environmentally or economically [and ideally both] – that *isn’t* basically just a Trojan Horse covering for some sort of racist dog-whistle.Personally, I think James Shaw did a pretty good job of that last year when he broached the subject of putting the Green Party’s population policy [something that’s been in their manifesto-equivalent now for more than a decade, I believe] into practice with regard to immigration. [this makes a certain amount of sense – as unless you go down the whole Chinese One Child Policy route, the only actual hands-on control a government can exercise over population increase is through migration rates. Although obviously changing cultural priorities around reproduction and altering availability of both contraception and abortion can also have an impact]But evidently, a sufficient number of Green Party folk disagreed with that assessment to mandate a somewhat embarrassing climb-down on that issue earlier this month. Embarrassing, I suggest, because the implication we got from Shaw’s repudiation statement was that basing policy on “data and numbers” rather than the optics of a situation was seen as being problematic – and if not actually racist itself, then at least pandering to same. It is arguably a worrying thing when “facts” wind up being deemed inconvenient and objectionable when it comes to policy-making.As it happens, despite the much-vaunted walking-back of Shaw’s previous policy-statements, as far as I can tell the Green Party’s policy-document still makes reference to the exact same idea which some Greens activists [and others] decided had to be opposed at all costs. The only thing that appears to have changed is a removal of actual ‘hard targets’ from the policy in favour of a much more nebulous [the jargon would no doubt be ‘values-based’] approach.I would therefore surmise that if the Green Party have a problem with New Zealand First on immigration, then they are being somewhat disingenuous if they refer to it as being a policy-issue rather than a rhetoric issue.And further, that if they are going to take serious issue with potential coalition partners on grounds of racist or otherwise problematic rhetoric, then they should probably also take a long hard look at their preferred partners the Labour Party.After all, let us remember that when New Zealand First was pushing for a register of foreign property-ownership in order to truly assess just what was being bought up and by whom to determine the scale of our problem – the Labour Party were bandying about a list of “Chinese-sounding surnames” acquired through dubious means in pursuit of churlish headlines.It might, I suppose, be argued that New Zealand First has a longer and more problematic history of objectionable communications in this area than does Labour. And there is perhaps a certain amount of truth in that. Not least because when we think of the words “Labour” and “Abhorrent Statement About Chinese Immigration”, we are probably far more likely to recall that time Shane Jones decided to defend Bill Liu being granted citizenship against reams of official advice and strong concern from Interpol.But to my mind, it is some of Turei’s other remarks that are most instructive when it comes to addeucing what the Greens are attempting to do here.For you see, upon closer inspection this whole thing is not actually about racist rhetoric on the campaign trail. Even though I have no doubt that many Greens folk feel legitimately dismayed about the thought of “enabling” Winston Peters in government because they think that’s what they are thus implicitly supporting.Rather, it is the Greens turning NZ First’s standard election positioning strategy on NZ First. With instead of NZ First’s customary signalling-lines about how the Greens or whomever are “dividing” New Zealand racially with extremist policies that can only be moderated or curtailed in a future government via a strong NZ First … well, the Greens are saying the exact mirror-image of this. Namely, that New Zealand First are allegedly practising, in Turei’s words “racist, divisive politics“, thus requiring New Zealanders to “strengthen [The Greens’] arm in the next government so they don’t have that type of influence“.Like I said: the exact mirror-image of what Winston customarily says about them. With additional points for Turei’s subsequent line about “moderating [NZ First’s] worst excesses” if compelled into a governing arrangement with NZ First – as this is literally what NZ First supporters say when speaking in putative favour of a National-NZ First coalition. [I once referred to this as “buying yourself some electoral insurance”]Will this work out successfully for them? I don’t think it especially likely. Anyone who was going to be (positively) motivated by such rhetoric is probably already voting for the Greens [or alternatively, has a radically different set of personal priorities, and is doing something weird like voting for ACT because they somehow think the destructive hand of the untrammelled market isn’t racially discriminatory or something].And for the many, MANY hundreds of thousands of voters who actually rate immigration as an important issue, well they’re hardly likely to feel inspired to support the Greens as a result of this, now, are they.Indeed, one prospective consequence is the exact opposite of what was hoped for by the Greens – New Zealand First picking up additional votes [and therefore a greater chance of being the dominant influence in a post-2017 Government].Another rather more certain outcome, sadly, will be the National Party continuing to look strong, stable and ‘safe’ in comparison to the prospective nont-National-led three-way Government.Not least because it’s rather plainly apparent to anybody who can count that the only way Labour and the Greens make it over the magic 61 seat threshold is with New Zealand First’s rather considerable help.Perhaps, then, the Green Party have made a rational calculation about a Labour/Greens/NZF Government after the Election being rather unlikely [for whatever reason – there are several important prospective causations for why this might eventuate] and are instead attempting to play ‘the long game’ by continuing to build their own support [at the expense of several other parties] in order to have a stronger voice in some as-yet unconceived future Government in 2020, 2023 etc.In any case – social media bubbles are not terribly reflective of the actual mood out there in the Electorate, but the strong majority of people who actually bother/care about such things as election-year political party spats do not necessarily appear to be on-side with the Greens about this one.It will be interesting to see what effect this might have in the medium-long term.Although I am taking some solace from the pointed refusal by either The Greens or New Zealand First to rule out working with the other party in Government after this year’s General Election.

There’s an old saying in politics – “It’s not the crime that gets you, it’s the coverup”.Any number of previous, well-trammelled scandals and imbroglios serve to prove this fundamental truth – with American political happenings such as Watergate and the Lewinski Affair probably being some of the best-known examples.For various reasons, it’s been a maxim often less applied here in New Zealand. There’s just something about living in a small, insular ‘everybody-knows-everybody’ kinda place that makes attempts at pulling off a genuine “cover-up” something of a fool’s errand.Todd Barclay, apparently, is that fool.Now, there are no doubt any mileage of column-inches about to be penned on the sorry saga by which a young lad managed to throw away a potentially life-long political career handed to him on a platter; but for my money [and it is taxpayer money we’re talking about, after all] no explanation better encapsulates what’s gone on than that ancient Greek maxim: “Those whom the Gods would destroy … they first make arrogant”.For it is arrogance in the extreme which appears to have characterized Barclay’s conduct right the way through what’s gone on. Starting with getting off-side with long-serving electorate office staff over his boyish refusal to turn up for community engagements in his constituency. And continuing apace with his overt antagonism of at least one of these staffers to the point that an employment grievance wound up being filed, and compensation – justly – argued for.Perhaps it is the brashness of young men [something I’m occasionally somewhat acquainted with]; and certainly, it is not at all out of keeping with the default de-rigeur characterization of the National Party that their incipient scion would have such a low opinion of the rights and protections accorded to the ordinary Kiwi worker [or, for that matter, those whom they are paid princely to represent].But whilst the stereotypical National voter might not care too much about the well-treatment of employees [and, going off National’s previous legislative record in this area, are pretty A-OK with the Government casually listening in on your private conversations] … if there’s one thing they DO care about, it’s the outright waste and mis-expenditure of taxpayer money. [At least in concept – once again, National’s actual record in this area has many, many millions mis-allocated to things like flag referendums, and Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment building redesigns etc.]And while other commentators are right now asking whether it’s an appropriate use of taxpayer coin to provide ‘hush-money’ to somebody who could potentially embarrass the Government … I’ve got a rather different question.Namely, whether Todd Barclay and co. have actually broken the law with the way they’ve attempted to keep the woman at the center of this all – one Glenys Dickson – from co-operating with the Police investigation into what’s gone on.So let’s recap.Section 216B of the Crimes Act makes it an offence [albeit a rather mild one, punishable by ‘only’ up to two years’ imprisonment] to illicitly record the private communications of others. Unless, of course, you’re Tim Groser having our intelligence services bug rivals for a plum job – in which case, it’s absolutely fine, apparently. Gosh, no wonder Barclay thought he was in the right – he was simply aping the example of those further up the National Party greasy-pole than he is. [At the very least, you’d think the Nats would be better acquainted with the ambit of this legislation given its previous use by the Prime Minister of the day to tarr morally blameless cameraman Bradely Ambrose as part o the ‘Teapot Tapes’ scandal]It is [rather strongly] alleged that the offence made out in s216B is exactly what Barclay did, using a listening device to record and potentially have a transcript made of Dickson’s communications in some sort of bizarre bid to get a ‘one-up’ of sorts upon her in a brewing employment dispute.Barclay has always denied that he did this (or at least, that he did so intentionally), and despite assuring his voters that he’d co-operate to the fullest extent with the police investigation into the ‘alleged’ bugging, he proceeded to dodge and frustrate police inquiries into the matter at every turn.The ten-month police investigation into the alleged bugging was eventually brought to a fruitless close due to “insufficient evidence”; although it occurs that it is perhaps rather curious that no search-warrant was ever served on Barclay’s place of residence [despite a previous Police interest in doing same] to recover the recording device and/or transcripts which would have proven the offence [or, to be fair, to have made out its actus reus element at the very least – errant legal expert Andrew Geddis has suggested that a lack of intent would vitiate the notion of a crime having been committed, even if Barclay later chose to keep the recordings].All things considered, a sad end to what should have been a proud statement that here in New Zealand, even Government MPs are not above the law [albeit a conclusion one wonders whether the Police might be revisiting, in light of the evident surfeit of people all throughout the upper echelons of the National Party not only of the opinion that a recording WAS made, but apparently acquainted in detail with some of the contents thereof].But the potential illegalities did not end there; and in light of this week’s revelations about what’s gone on, I would go so far as to suggest that it’s only now that things have gotten ‘really interesting’.Everybody’s focused thus far on the aforementioned section 216B of our Crimes Act.But in fact, there is another – far older – segment of our criminal code that may be more directly relevant to what’s gone on here.In specia, section 117 – “Corrupting Juries And Witnesses” [and, for that matter, perhaps also its immediately above neighbour, s116 – “Conspiring To Defeat Justice“].Walk with me, if you will, through s117.Subsection (a) sets out that a person who “dissuades or attempts to dissuade a person, by threats, bribes, or other corrupt means, from giving evidence in any cause or matter (whether civil or criminal[)]” commits an offence punishable by up to seven years imprisonment. Subsection (e) furthers the ambit of this section by adding that a person who “willfully attempts in any other way to obstruct, prevent, pervert, or defeat the course of justice in New Zealand” is also guilty of the same offence.Clear so far? Good.Now take a look at a few of the quotes that have come out from the key National players in this scandal:Bill English’s statement that a “larger than normal settlement […] part-paid from the Prime Minister’s budget in order to avoid potential legal action” takes on a bit of a different light, now, doesn’t it.More to the point, presuming for the moment that the statement Dickson has given to Police about her interactions with various high-up National functionaries is accurate [and I see no reason, at this point to doubt it], what are we to make of her being told that going all the way to Court would make things “difficult” for her and her family? Or, for that matter, the very pointed emphasis that she’d be singlehandedly responsible for “[taking] down the National Party” if she persisted with her police complaint.Do these incidences appear to look rather like the elements of the offence of witness-tampering as made out in s117 of the Crimes Act? Why, I think they do. At least enough to mount a serious and vigorous prosecution – even if the result is ultimately in the negative.We have a prima-facie situation of the current Prime Minister stating that a cash payment was considered [which meets the definition of a ‘bribe’ as set out in the s99 Interpretation of the Crimes Act for ‘Crimes Affecting The Administration Of Laws And Justice’] necessary to prevent “legal action” in this matter. Regardless of whether the legal proceedings in question are civil or criminal in nature, the charge laid out in s117 can still apply.Further, the comments from the as-yet unnamed National Party high-up about how taking Barclay to Court would make things “difficult” for Dickson’s family – whilst perhaps presentable as being the mere facts and reality of undergoing legislative proceedings in a high-profile case – certainly appears to have been presented to Dickson with the overt overtones of a “threat”. And the attempt to exert ‘moral pressure’ of a sort upon Dickson to not besmirch the name of the National Party and its ability to pass legislation, is arguably yet another example [if we presume that ‘threat’ means “if you do X, then Y undesirable consequence for you not directly connected to X will happen”], particularly in light of the implicit statement that Dickson would become something of a pariah in National Party circles [which evidently include quite some of her close associates among them] for being a whistle-blower. At the very least, it would be enough for an exploratory probe under the earlier s116, concerning potential Conspiracy To Defeat The Course Of Justice.Now will anything come of any of the above? I’m not sure. Certainly, in an ordinary and transparent political-legal system, there would be pretty reasonable grounds to get very, very annoyed indeed if none of this were looked into further by the proper authorities. Particularly in light of the already somewhat curious decision of the Police to drop the Barclay case despite very strong [albeit arguably circumstantial] evidence in their possession that an offence against s216b concerning the illicit recording HAD been committed.Having said all that, I must concede a possibility that there is yet more material yet to come out which casts the whole thing in a different light. But with what we know so far it is difficult in the extreme to avoid the severe impression of egregious impropriety with what’s gone on.Perhaps my next ‘big question’ should be why Barclay wasn’t de-selected as the local National candidate many, many moons ago. Particularly as a successful conviction for any of the above [even, according to my reading of the law, the relatively more mild s216B recording device charge] would result in the responsible parties – if MPs – being booted out of Parliament with great haste under s55(d) of the Electoral Act.In order to attempt to ‘cauterize’ the bleeding – and prevent even ‘higher-profile’ scalps from finding themselves mounted on some errant litigant’s wall – I would fully expect Barclay to be “gone by lunchtime” [in the words of a previous somewhat scandal-mired National Party Leader]. Whether that’s enough to prevent a full-scale probe into who’s said what to whom is another matter. If National moves to block a proper Inquiry into how much and what sort of involvement senior figures including other MPs had in these events, then it certainly gives the compelling impression that they’ve something to hide.In any case, looking at all of this it’s pretty hard to feel confident that a party which runs itself in such an avowedly circus-like manner could possibly be fit to govern the rest of the nation.“The Fish”, as they also say in politics, “rots from the head” on down.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/06/21/are-todd-barclay-and-national-high-ups-guilty-of-witness-tampering/feed/19A Point To Consider On s59 ‘Anti-Smacking’ Debatehttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/06/20/a-point-to-consider-on-s59-anti-smacking-debate/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/06/20/a-point-to-consider-on-s59-anti-smacking-debate/#commentsMon, 19 Jun 2017 20:06:29 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=88123There’s a point to be made on this whole ‘Anti-Smacking’/s59 debate which New Zealand First has brought back to the limelight, that I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else making.

And it’s this: At the moment, the way s59 works is that what constitutes ‘reasonable force’ under subsection (1) of the law is subjective – and the decision on whether a parent gets prosecuted is pretty much entirely a matter for the discretion of Police [see subsection (4)]. Now, on the face of it, this might appear eminently reasonable. There are perhaps legitimate quibbles to be had with Police operational guidelines determining what’s a crime rather than the black-letter law of Parliament – but that is another issue.

As it stands, there’s another area of law wherein Police have an incredibly broad power of discretion about whether or not to prosecute somebody – and that’s low-level cannabis possession. You might be forgiven for thinking, given my previous background, that this is something I’d be massively in favour of. And to a certain extent, I guess I am. It’s in everybody’s interests for folk who might happen to be snapped with a tinny or a fifty to not be clogging up our nation’s court system after all.

But a look at the actual statistics resulting from this low-key ‘discretionary-de-facto-decriminalization’ approach is illuminating; in that it adduces quite the disparity along racial lines in who gets let off with a pre-charge warning or other lack of serious legal consequence, versus who finds themselves in first The Cells, and then The Dock.

Unfortunately, the New Zealand Police have not exactly been forthcoming in response to my own previous attempts to get data off them about how various cannabis offenders may or may not wind up with different outcomes on the basis of their socio-economic background, and other such factors. So it’s difficult to truly substantiate how much of a wider problem this might be.

With that in mind, when it comes to the sorts of situations s59 was designed to cover, even a moment’s cynical consideration serves to suggest that an articulate upper-class chap in a suit standing at the door of a flash home in a well-heeled suburb is probably going to have a better chance of convincing a policeman who turns up at his door that nothing’s amiss, as compared to an ordinary working-class man living through no fault of his own in a glorified garage Out West.

My point, then, is that there are very real reasons to be concerned about any law whose application hinges almost entirely upon the discretion of an individual person – and their own best judgement as to what words like “reasonable force” mean. Particularly given that the historic way we test these sorts of things is to err on the side of caution, bring somebody before a judge and jury, and ask the latter to decide on which side of the legal ‘grey area’ an alleged offender’s conduct falls [c.f cases of force used in ‘self defence’].

Although despite this, I am not entirely sure that I would call New Zealand First entirely vindicated over this issue.

Tracey’s comments on Q&A appear to suggest that NZ First wishes for greater clarity in the law, whilst still legally prohibiting parents from engaging in the sort of brutal conduct with horse-whips and the like which lead to the law’s enactment in the first place. That’s fair enough, and I would even go so far as to suggest it’s difficult to argue against [unless you want smacking legally prohibited entirely – which is definitely NOT what the s59 bill was sold to us as doing].

But in that case, it would surely make greater sense for New Zealand First to put forward our own amendment bill to deliver this greater clarity – rather than potentially adding to the murkiness by calling for a Referendum which might result in the extant s59’s repeal with no clear view as yet as to what may replace it.

Either way, it seems curious to me in the extreme that the ‘side’ of politics which is usually so ardently suspicious [whether rightly or otherwise] of policemen and laws which can be ‘flexibly applied’ on the basis of race or class … are instead pretty emphatically adamant that the law we’ve got is problem-free.

Are they right to be enthusiastic about what we have at the moment? Depends what you prioritize. Certainly, the argument has been made from a number of quarters that child-abuse rates in New Zealand remain endemic regardless of s59’s passage. [something which I personally view as being fairly directly tied with the ongoing deterioration of economic outcomes for many thousands of New Zealanders thanks to three decades of worsening Neoliberal misrule]

Ordinarily, this is where I’d make my level-best attempt at penning a strong conclusion.

But with the very real possibility that New Zealand First’s increased salience on the political landscape this year will make for an actual re-referendum on the subject … it’s fair to say that any ‘conclusion’ reached on this issue is very much a tenuous one.

The first of these, is that this is rather rich criticism coming from Mr Jones. The last time he was in Parliament, he was part of a party that presided over immigration levels so high they’ve only recently been eclipsed by National.

Worse, when Jones talks of “rancid” circumstances in the Immigration portfolio, we can only presume that he is speaking from hard-won experience. As the Minister in charge of this area, he went against official advice to pressure for New Zealand citizenship to be granted to international criminal and money-launderer Bill Liu (who just so happened to be a personal friend of Jones). No comments about “as corrupt as chow-mein” then, I take it?

The plain fact of the matter is that Jones’ Parliamentary career to date has been characterized by a series of actions at complete odds with the image he will no doubt shortly be seeking to project. Instead of criticizing a government’s record on immigration – whether ‘export-education’ driven or otherwise – he was an active proponent and participant in some of the worst excesses of same.

I can only presume that Jones’ sudden complete volte-face has something to do with his impending personal ambitions.

Finally, what really left a bad taste in my mouth was Jones’ both scurrilous and utterly spurious full-frontal assault upon the taste and texture of butter chicken. As any who know me can well attest, I am quite fond of North Indian cuisine [butter chicken, contrary to popular speculation, apparently having been developed and popularized by a Hindu refugee who wound up having to flee what would become Pakistan during the dark days of Partition]; and whilst the humble butter chicken is far from my favourite preparation, a word does definitely need to be spoken in its defence.

There is nothing “rancid” about butter chicken. And it is truly tasteless to attempt to demarcate an ethnic group (as Jones has clearly attempted to do, given the attention upon the Indian component of New Zealand’s ‘export education market of late) via recourse to blithely insulting one of the more commonly consumed elements of their habitually associated cuisine. I wouldn’t dream, for instance, of attempting to denigrate Jones in terms usually reserved for bad seafood. Although it does occur that the reasoning behind Biblical prohibitions upon eating same [well, Jones’ preferred lobsters and molluscs anyway] had much to do with the fact that many of these creatures were the carrion of the sea, or whose filter-feeding lead to the direct coming into contact with of potentially hazardous waste.

Now I am not, strictly speaking, endeavouring to suggest that the risks of taking one such as Jones into one’s own body-politik are akin to that of eating uncooked shellfish.

But it does occur that in politics – as with bad kai moana – that Jones is hardly likely to taste any better upon the second time around, coming up.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/06/16/only-thing-rancid-about-butter-chicken-comment-is-shane-jones/feed/8“Oh Snap” – Storming Into The New And Excellently Populist World Post-UK General Electionhttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/06/13/oh-snap-storming-into-the-new-and-excellently-populist-world-post-uk-general-election/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/06/13/oh-snap-storming-into-the-new-and-excellently-populist-world-post-uk-general-election/#commentsMon, 12 Jun 2017 21:37:31 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=87839

At the time of writing, we are perhaps a mere forty-eight hours after the results of the UK’s General Election came in. And already, it seems like an entire Amazonian forest of trees, and a fairly literal Black Sea of ink have already been spilled in attempting to make sense of what has happened.That’s arguably fairly normal of course, in the scheme of things. An Election – even one which doesn’t, ultimately *quite* manage to result in what we might term a clear-cult ‘transfer of power’ [the DUP excepted – the word after “clear” was not a typo] in one of the more populous and potent polities of the planet almost invariably attracts scrutiny, and post-facto analysis.But what’s arguably remarkable about this one, is the tone and tenor of many of the media-pieces and media-appearances on the subject. To wildly misquote Churchill … never have so many been so wrong about so much, apparently. And this isn’t even a “Dewey Beats Truman” style situation wherein the commentariat got the outcome *completely* wrong. Like it or not [and I don’t], there is still a Conservative Government in-power in England. Theresa May is still the Prime Minister.It might all go – as they say – Pete Tong very shortly, with Corbyn pledging to attempt to roll May on the occasion of the Queen’s Speech later this year. This is significant, because rather than the empty bluster which a comparable ‘Vote of No Confidence’ in our own Parliament generally entails [wherein some Opposition Party moves the motion, and then it fails because the Government manages to whip all its MPs into line, partially by threatening to deselect them or have them booted off the List, and cajoles its support partners into doing likewise], given the fairly comprehensive disarray the Conservative Party has descended into since the Election, there’s every chance that UK Labour will actually be able to – if not get rid of May, then at least force meaningful policy-concessions from the Government.But why is this even a thing? Surely the Conservatives, as a broad analogue to our own domestic National Party, love power so much that they’d not easily be induced to do anything which might seemingly jeopardise their holding of it? [other than, of course, selecting an apparent shop’s mannequin as their Prime Minister, who calls a Snap Election] Well, yes and no. As applies “yes” – those MPs who are still in Parliament may deign to go against the May Agenda in the hopes of *remaining in Parliament* in the prospectively very near future; whilst other Con MPs – folk with principle, perhaps surprisingly – are presently kicking up a fairly huge fuss about the presumptive inclusion of the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland as the essential support-partner which makes the Conservative Government still a viable thing.

It’s um … it’s probably not a great sign for Government “Stability” if you’re facing a back-bench revolt about the only thing still keeping you in Government. But I digress.During the campaign, we were repeatedly warned by everyone from notional Tories to nominal Labour supporters [and even, ominously, MPs] that the very real risk of this Election would be that it delivered a Government of Extremists and Terrorist-Sympathisers.

Nobody thought to mention, of course, that it would be May leading the aforementioned Government; but a cursory examination of some of their representatives’ utterances, as well as an illustrious history that includes close operating ties with everything from criminally accused paramilitaries to international arms smugglers … it’s not at all hard to see why the Scottish Conservatives who’re pretty much the only thing allowing the Conservative Party all up to pretend it’s keeping its head above water right now wound up seeking an agreement with the party main that the DUP’s influence upon the prospective MayDUP Government would be ring-fenced and limited. And were even reportedly considering breaking away from the Conservative Party itself in order to form their own independent electoral organization.When May campaigned on a ‘Hard Brexit’ … one presumes that this particular ‘Dissolution of Union’ wasn’t exactly what she had in mind.But then, there are currently quite a LOT of people out there – particularly well-known figures in the ‘literati’ spheres of politics, popular culture, and the (print) media, who haven’t gotten anything like they (so dearly) seem to have expected out of this Election.As cannot have escaped anybody’s notice, things “weren’t supposed” to play out this way. Go back and look what’s been said over the past two years. Read any of JK Rowling’s tweets on the subject. Or Bill Clinton’s speech remarks on Labour’s leader. Or Obama’s. Or any of the bevvy of Labour Party front-benchers and big-men who queued up to pour scorn and vitriol upon their now incipient Messiah-in-tweed. Corbyn was “supposed” to lead Labour to an utter disaster in the low-mid 20% range. Not come within two and a half thousand votes of being able to govern the country!Forget Rupert Murdoch storming out of a party upon hearing that he apparently no longer singlehandedly decides who lives and who dies in British politics on Election Night. Or our own home-grown pauper’s penny-roll equivalent, Mike Hosking’s jubilant pre-Election pro-May triumphalism.What really interests me is all of those nominally [and here, I stress that term] ‘left-wing’ people who’re so adamantly ardent that this whole thing is a fluke, can’t be real, was a one-off … or, somehow, that Labour should have inconceivably done BETTER [than this already almost-inconceivably-except-it-ACTUALLY-HAPPENED result], and that it’s Corbyn’s fault [you know, the man who somehow took them from polling low-twenties to polling in the forties, just behind the Conservatives] they aren’t presently inexplicably in Government.Please excuse my salt-shaker approach to parentheticals there. I tend to get a bit bracket-happy when I’m exceedingly bewildered.The reason why people who SHOULD be overjoyed are, in fact, vituperatively annoyed as applies this result, is a glaringly simple one. Because it wasn’t done “their” way. And, in point of fact, it makes it plainly apparent – egregiously so, in fact – that “their way” [also known as the “Third Way”] … is one of those interminable Roads to Hell [and we all know what those are paved with – at least in the beginning], rather than a pathway to prosperity and psephological success.We have been told now, for quite some time, that Elections are won and lost in the Centre. This is, from my perspective [and also, interestingly, that of the New Zealand Public] pretty inarguably true.It’s just that over the last thirty years or so, the ‘Centre’ has seriously – although obviously not ‘irrevocably’ – changed. Policies and positions [and, for that matter, politicians] who once upon a time would have been considered so far right that they’d be the exclusive demesne of the more relatively-sane bits of McWarlordville AnCapistan are now the new ‘middle ground’. In fact, they’re actually marketed fairly openly as being “centre left” [this is also, incidentally, why our own Muldoon is now ‘far left’ economically; whilst the NZ Labour Party has managed to move barely an iota since 1987 in terms of economics and has somehow wound up being occasionally described IN THE PRESENT DAY as ‘socialistic’.]. It’s madness. And we all KNOW it’s madness. The only reason why it’s been allowed to festeringly continue is because we’ve been continuously told – ad nauseum, ad infinatum, and at laboriously-ratcheted up fingernails-on-chalkboard volume – that There Is No Alternative.Bullshit.The people who turned out for Corbyn, in their millions, are living proof that not only IS there an Alternative [i.e. if you get enough people together, a party running a platform that’s *reasonably to the left* – although, as ever, *reasonable* – of what’s considered “electable” by our “benevolent” elites … CAN actually bring together the numbers to make a serious political difference]; but that the broad mass of The People, out there across the Anglosphere and beyond, are waking up to this fact.And they’re pretty pissed at realizing they’ve been lied to for all this time.This is, arguably, why all of the incredible fusilade of phantasmagorical firepower directed at Corbyn over the course of the campaign seems to have fizzled and fairly utterly failed to make a mark upon his prospects. Because all of a sudden, when you realize you’ve been chronically mislead by just about everybody in the media sphere about everything, the same talking heads attempting to fearmonger about Corbyn supposedly being pro-Hezbollah [one of the leading forces fighting ISIS, incidentally, unlike the Saudis whom May just helped out massively by suppressing a report showing they’re *helping* dodgy extremist groups, while alsoselling them arms] become pretty much a non-event.Maybe it’s because people care less about vague claims of anti-semitism and links to Iran than they do about whether a politician looks like they’re *actually going to help them* with a home, a job, and the protection of their right to healthcare. Perhaps it’s the above-alluded-to “Cry Wolf” effect.However it’s happened, this represents a refreshing and exciting potential change away from the politics of New Labour [wherein ‘Style’ was most definitely in vogue over ‘Substance’ [with the possible exception of Pulp’s excellent expository anthem, Cocaine Socialism]], through to a prioritization of reality over carefully massaged spin-doctoring. Some might call this “TrueLabour” as an obvious, rhyming contrast.But the trouble with this, from the perspective of those aforementioned nasty elites, is that it risks ‘opening the door’ to putting People back in charge of politics – rather than shady, nefarious think-tanks and the occasional veneer of focus-grouping effectively presiding over The People.How else to explain pieces like this from the LA Times, wherein Corbyn’s surge is presented as a dire manifestation of “the perils of too much democracy”. [this article is particularly ridiculous, as it attempts to argue that Britons having a say in their own affairs at previous instances such as Brexit drives down turnout for ‘actually important’ elections – a manifest untruth, given the turnout for last week’s General was the highest it’s been in a quarter century] Or figures with ties to the ‘Blairite’ wing of Labourlike Lord Sugar attempting to pour scorn upon the people now voting for Labour in their droves as being ‘out of touch’. [Gosh, it’s a funny sort of world wherein it is parties and their apparatchiks attempting to argue that The People are out of touch with them, rather than parties being out of touch with their constituents. Reminds me of the famous Bertolt Brecht ditty about an Eastern European country’s government losing confidence in its people – and asking the question as to whether it would be thusly desirable for the Government to dissolve its people and elect another]Although the best illustration of the principle I’m trying to explain is probably to be found in the Bill Clinton speech I linked a few paragraphs above. In it, Clinton characterizes Corbyn as a “guy off the street”, and therefore patently unsuitable for the leadership of a modern political party.This is a funny thing, indeed, when we consider what the Labour Party was originally supposed to be: namely, an organization by ‘guys off the street’ [in specia, often from the union movement], *for* ‘guys off the street’. Perhaps not quite an “ordinary person’s party”, but certainly not a party of the seemingly plenipotent and omnipresent insidious elites who believe it’s their influence-given right to come in and rule us like latter-day [quasi-elected but often not really] kings.In short, they’re seriously afraid of ‘Common People’. [this is probably an appropriate time for another Pulp song – this time, of the same title, but as covered by William Shatner]. Or, more specifically, ‘common people’ they can’t control. The technical term for this, as I may have noted before, is “Ochlophobia” [although there’s another school of thought whichThis isn’t really a ‘new thing’ in Western politics nor elite perceptions [consider the representation of ‘the mob’ in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar for a rather overt indication of what the Nobles of our society have always thought was the logical consequence of allowing people to have a say in their own destiny]. But it is absolutely peculiar – if not outright offensive – that in the view of these craven harpies, there is no place for the “Rule of the People” in their conception of “Democracy”. Ironic, no? [although at the very least, I suppose it’s better than what was done to Greece not so long ago thanks to a slightly different (yet overlapping) group of transnational malignant elites …]In a related sense, the reason so many media commentators and other such associated personalities remain both confused and annoyed about Corbyn’s ‘shock’ not-victory is because they’re used to setting up and controlling “the narrative”. My learned associate [and fellow TDB columnist] Chris Trotter once told me of the “Three Dicks” who presided over political media here in New Zealand in the 1980s. Richards Harman, Long, and Griffin of TVNZ, The Dominion, and Radio New Zealand respectively. David Lange was reportedly of the opinion that without their co-operation and being ‘in’ on the strategy, putting forward a coherent message to voters would be strenuously difficult. The UK is a more ‘sophisticated’ [I hesitate to say ‘advanced’] society than ours in many ways; and yet whereas our traditional sources of media [along with their coseted ‘gatekeepers’] are of fading importance, theirs still have the temerity to believe themselves to still be seriously in control [a feeling no doubt deliberately fostered thanks to the famously close relationship between Blair’s ‘New Labour’ and the big press barons]. It must certainly be an inordinate feeling of power to be able to not just arrange the news on a page – but to be able to [at least partially] choreograph the actual events and perceptions being reported upon.But the thing about power – as with any other compulsive, dopaminergic drug … is that its absence or curtailment begins to trigger some rather nasty withdrawals. Subjective symptoms can include confusion, aggression, erratic behavior, and the compulsive engagement in some rather wild delusions. All of which, I would contend, fairly describe quite an array [but importantly, not all] of those folk opposed to Corbyn in the media.“The Narrative”, as it were, is up in the air. It’s been supplanted in many ways, by a different chain of events [which, if you look closely, make *far* more ‘narrative sense’ than the original ‘script’ ever seemed to]. So the people who feel it’s ‘their’ prerogative to be penning it are deathly worried that it’s events and the story-determined flow of causality – rather than just people – which they thusly can’t control.They’re right.The reason why we’re constantly bombarded in the run-up to Polling Day [in whatever country] with maliciously false opinion-pieces and polling data about how certain things are “inevitable” or “can’t possibly happen” – is in order to set up the sorts of ‘self-fulfilling prophecies’ which seriously condition YOUR choice going into the voting-booth. As we’ve seen time and time again, if people think that there’s no point in voting because the result’s already been determined … then they won’t. And thus, it happens. This is why pro-National sources push the idea of National riding so high in the polls and being set to govern alone so vigorously for the months before an Election – because it suppresses turnout from non-National voters [who appear to think – why bother voting if it’s not going to change anything], thus guaranteeing a higher Nat share of the eventual [lowered] turnout.A similar thing has evidently been tried in the UK last week, as well as with the previous Brexit referendum which lead to this whole glorious imbroglio. Except on both occasions, ordinary Britons decided to ‘buck the narrative’ – buck it right up, in fact – and made the effort to actually vote in numbers and in ways that hadn’t been anticipated. Like I said above – Friday represented the highest turnout since Labour’s historic high-water mark in 1997.The core message from the 2017 UK General Election, then, is that regardless of what any number of commentators, pop-cultural figures, and has-been politicians might tell you … if you put in the effort to support something, it actually CAN make a difference. The greatest force in politics – the stuff of which revolutions are truly made – is, in fact, people. People coming together to believe in things. Together.It was said by all of the above vested-interest talking heads that Labour’s policies and presumptive Prime Minister In Waiting made the whole edifice unelectable. That the ‘only’ “path to victory” would have been to go back Neoliberal in a futile bid to repeat the Blair successes of the late 90s and early 2000s. No less a personage [for could there truly be any lesser] than Tony Blair HIMSELF bleated to any who would listen that this was the inexorable way to go to avoid oblivion. And yet, if we go back and look at the results from the last five General Elections, it’s quite abundantly clear that – if anything – the converse is arguably true. In 2001, Labour scored 40.7%. 2005, 35.2%. 2010: 29% [and a loss of Government to the Conservatives]. 2015: 30.4%. And 2017? 40.0%

It is surely no coincidence that the declining limb of the above dataset represent the neoliberal twosome of Blair and Brown; with the rather small bump of the Miliband campaign showing the Labour Party had not seriously moved to distance itself from this disastrous Blairite legacy. It’s only under Corbyn – ‘plain old’ actually-a-socialist Corbyn – that they’ve cracked back up to the 40s. Scoring, not coincidentally, well above what Blair and Blairism were capable of delivering once the ‘shiny’ had worn off.Gosh. It’s almot like giving the people what they actually want [as opposed to what elites think they should *ought* to want] is a pretty good recipe for electoral success or something. Who’d have thought?In any case, it might seem somewhat peculiar to be so avowedly celebrating a “losing” result. And certainly, there are even now Conservative-supporting spinners attempting to construe such conduct as utterly illogical if not outright psychotic-hallucinatory. These latter sorts are apparently unaware of the concept of a ‘Pyrrhic Victory’ [so named for King Pyrrhus of Epirus – who famously opined following the Battle of Asculum words to the effect of “one more win like that and we’re stuffed”].But what Friday’s outcome represents – to me, anyway – is a serious and perhaps even decisive blow struck in the ongoing war for your mind. An overt, and undeniable signifer that we don’t just have to do what the TV tells us; and that the supposed “experts” who apparently get to de-legitimate or pooh-pooh well-thought out and well-costed policy on the basis of personal preference [masquerading as highly technically ‘competent’ and long-won ‘expertise’] CAN be proven wrong. Even if only from time to time, by large and impressive events such as these.It has been said [most popularly in V for Vendetta] that Governments should be afraid of their people.I don’t know that I’d go quite that far.Although ringing in my ears as I type this are the sage words of Winston Churchill. And not the one that goes “‘as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short, we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again” – however relevant that might be, given the new saliency of the DUP and Irish issues in British politics as of this week. [My thanks to my former Politics lecturer, Patrick Hine, for drawing my attention to that one]Instead, it is the rather more famous aphorism from a speech he made in 1937:“Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”Those who oppose us are not, in the conventional sense of the term, “dictators”. That would require rather more overt presentation and exercise of control than they are comfortable wielding.Instead, they are Oligarchs. Oligarchs, Technocrats, and other Elites both Uncountable and Unaccountable.The ‘Tiger’ which they ride upon, they had thought an old, geriatric, de-fanged and de-clawed beast more fit for living out its remaining days behind the glass at the local zoo. Less of a threat, even, than the proverbial ‘paper tiger’ – and infinitely more bendable [to their will].It must have come as an awe-ful [in the older sense .. as in, inspiring quite some awe – in me, at least] surprise for them to come to forcibly realize that it yet maintains a most considerable vitality!I suspect that things are only poised to get more *ahem* ‘excitingly stripey’ from here!

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/06/13/oh-snap-storming-into-the-new-and-excellently-populist-world-post-uk-general-election/feed/5“And Not A Reason To Be Missed – If You’re On Their Little List” : Thoughts on the Green Party’s 2017 Listhttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/05/31/and-not-a-reason-to-be-missed-if-youre-on-their-little-list-thoughts-on-the-green-partys-2017-list/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/05/31/and-not-a-reason-to-be-missed-if-youre-on-their-little-list-thoughts-on-the-green-partys-2017-list/#commentsTue, 30 May 2017 21:13:28 +0000http://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=87256One of the things which seemingly sets the Green Party apart from other large-scale electoral vehicles in this country, is the way they do their list ranking process. Most political parties will delegate this incredibly important responsibility to a single committee, or other tightly controlled schema; with a view to ensuring the “right” outcomes, amenable to the Party Leadership, are resultingly delivered.Occasionally, there’ll be some brief outbreak of flirtatious indulgence with democracy [and, indeed, Labour’s shift in how it selects its Leader is arguably an instance of this]; but in the main, a certain degree of abject terror about what ‘the masses’ of the Party Faithful might do if they ACTUALLY got a serious say in the list-ranking process keeps many of our multi-coloured electoral tribes from going TOO terribly far down this particular road.But not so The Greens. Say what you like about the eventual results of their listing process .. it’s hard to disagree that the mechanisms by which these are produced are pretty much the most democratic in the land [subject to occasional ‘correction’ from on-high, as we have previously seen with a view to ensuring a more optimal balance of North Island and South Island representation].Although just because it’s broadly democratic, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s optimal. And given the huge variety of perceptions people have about what the makeup of Parliament ‘should’ be [recall, for instance, the old debate about a ‘House of Representatives’, wherein we place emphasis upon selecting those with aptitudes that will strengthen the legislative/political process; versus the ‘Representative House’, which strives to have a Parliament that mirrors New Zealand more or less exactly in terms of race, gender, sexuality etc. etc. etc.], it’s entirely unsurprising that reasonable people can seriously, strenuously disagree as to whether a given Party’s List is a great one.The 2017 Green Party List looks set to be no exception.The ‘draft’ iteration released some weeks ago has already inspired considerable debate [and/or jeering]; and it is interesting to note that the finalized version put out yesterday appears to ‘double down’ on some of the things which rendered the previous List such a lightning-rod for commentariat controversy.Namely, the way youthful – and more especially youthful female – candidates appear to have been elevated at the direct expense of several other axes of diversity.There are a number of potential reasons for this. The three candidates I’m thinking of in particular are rather high-profile [Ghahraman, Swarbrick, and Holt], with two arguably qualifying for a sort of minor quasi-celebrity status [Swarbrick & Holt], whilst the third [Ghahraman] has an impressive resume and record of service of exactly the sort one would expect from a quality Member of Parliament.When it comes to the votes of ordinary Green Party members, therefore [which is what plays a strong role in determining the shape of the second-phase list], it’s presumably to be somewhat expected that democracy will wind up prioritizing those who are well known over more quiet achievers. Particularly, as in the case of Holt [who’s gained an impressive 12 places in the second set of rankings], where there’s been much murmurings of surprise as to a perceived ‘too-low’ placing.But given the strong concern many Green Party membership-folk seem to have for concepts like “diversity”, I believe something else has also been at play here.Namely, something which I call the ‘diversity olympics’. This is the notion that as the processes of Parliamentary List rankings represent the competition between various perspectives as to what’s ‘important’ to have in a candidate, a Caucus, and so on and so forth … and as all ‘diversities’ can’t be equally represented unless the Greens somehow manage to poll well enough to effectively become a ‘one party state’, list-ranking in the minds of a goodly number of Greens members able to vote on the eventual list [and also the Executive when it chooses to intervene in same] is therefore about establishing a hierarchy of which ‘diversities’ they MOST want to see in Parliament.Understood in these terms, then, it becomes rather interesting indeed that the Greens’ latest List appears to have such a pronounced pattern of demoting [or otherwise placing in perilously low positions] its Maori MPs and candidates [with, to be fair, the notable exception of Marama Davidson – who was placed deservedly highly in the initial list, and gained on this by one spot in the re-work].[In specia, for those of you playing at home … it’s somewhat sad to see long-time Green activist and principled chap Jack McDonald lose four placings, winding up in the mid-teens; presently-sitting MP Denise Roche also find herself wending downwards toward number 15; fellow presently-sitting MP David Clendon relegated to number 16; and Teanau Tuiono also dropping to number 19]And further, the demotion of sitting MP Mojo Mathers (by three places) and candidate John Hart (to number 14) would appear to suggest, at best, that a reasonable swathe of the Greens’ membership effectively prioritizes the shininess of some of its newfound youth/female candidates over the ‘diversity’ represented by Disability [Mathers is, as far as I am aware, our nation’s only present MP who has the visceral personal experience of living day-to-day with a serious and seriously intrusive disability, in the form of deafness]; and by, I suppose, some combination of not being an ‘urban-liberal’ [like much of the rest of the Greens’ top-twenty listings], and being able to reach out to farmers by virtue of being one.Also rather disappointing to see new MP Barry Coates drop two placings, but I guess his strong record of NGO service isn’t quite the sort of diversity they’re looking for.Now, to be fair to The Greens, Golriz Ghahraman’s impressive jump to top-ten status [an increase of five placings on her previous, perhaps undeservedly relatively low standing] does serve to counterbalance this trend somewhat. Mention has already been made of Ghahraman’s legal competency [something of undeniable importance for a legislator], record of and proclivity for helping others and serving nation [the sine qua non requirement for an MP, in my view]; but it’s probably worth noting that her personal background also provides an important aspect of diversity to the Greens’ final list – namely, that of being able to convincingly represent the non-white/anglosphere migrant communities demographic which the Greens have historically struggled quite significantly to reach [as a point of interest, in 2011 and possibly again in 2014, the NZ First Party’s list – for all the commentary about “xenophobia” in said organization – actually worked out being more diverse in these regards than the Green Party’s].But in terms of the ‘other’ high-profile youth/female candidate to be a ‘winner’ on the recently updated list, Chloe Swarbrick, leaving aside the aforementioned qualities of her youth and the level of ‘hype’ that has grown up around her in the last few months, I am genuinely unsure quite what she adds to the Greens’ List and prospective Caucus to justify such a prominently high List ranking.Obviously, I am not party to much of what goes on inside the Green Party, and it’s eminently possible that there is a side of Swarbrick that I am not seeing. But based on her performance at an election year debate held earlier in the week at Auckland University, and on the opinions of some folk who’ve come into contact with her in a political capacity this year, it seems difficult to truly see what all the fuss is about.Persons amenable to her keep saying things like “she’s highly articulate and really good on policy”. It’s possible that she just had a bad night when I happened to catch her ‘in action’ earlier this week; but I didn’t exactly see either trait in evidence. There’s also a persistent parroting of the notion that she “really changed the conversation around the mayoralty/public transport/youth representation in politics”.My flat look of askance every time somebody says this is accompanied by asking *how*, and what we can actually point to which more strongly evinces that she’s managed those things. Thus far, nobody’s managed to provide me with a coherent answer which didn’t basically boil down to that old Ralph-Wiggum-I’m-Helping trope of “Raising Awareness’.Now, to be fair to Swarbrick, she’s obviously got /something/ to her – after all, she’s managed to go from complete relative unknown to about to become an MP inside the space of six to eight months. There is a certain level of respect as a political operator which that almost automatically requests.But looking at the ongoing disconnect between how hugely Swarbrick the political Enfant Titanical has been built up in the minds of many, and the somewhat underwhelming experience of observing her actually campaign, I can only conclude that various agents of narrative construction [in the media and elsewhere] have consciously chosen to imbue Swarbrick with both overweaning hype and ‘zeitgeistyness’; talking up her positive attributes, in a way that’s now had a tangible effect upon the nation’s political process.And, might I add, in a way that coming third in a local body election with about as much of the vote as Penny Bright plus perennial ACT no-hoper Stephen Berry, amidst a Mayoral field which featured a split right-wing [two National candidates], and a ‘foregone-conclusion-so-get-out-yer-protest-votes’ nominal ‘left-wing’ easy-favourite candidate … just simply didn’t.Perhaps I have become inordinately cynical and curmudgeonly in my [relative] old age; but the only feasible explanation I can see for Swarbrick’s high placing is that Greens have decided that the large quotient of “SHINY” presently invested in Swarbrick might just rub off on their Party at large in the event that she’s handed a shining path to becoming an MP. Certainly, other than hype-value, it is a little difficult to see what she adds from a strategic point of view. I do not doubt that Swarbrick can resonate with a reasonable proportion of the stereotypical Green voter or party member. But given her primary audience appears to be found amidst the young [liberal] folk who do bother to vote, those older or middle aged and middle-income voters who get all giddy about the notion of supporting ‘young people’ because ‘they’re the future, and parts of the post-materialist values crowd all up … as these people are most likely ALREADY voting Green, it is somewhat implausible that she’ll help the Greens bring in *new* voters, rather than assisting most markedly in ‘doubling down’ on what they already have.The very real risk, given the allocations of list rankings to other candidates and their ‘diversity factors’ this time around, is that she won’t be “balanced” in this regard by further figures who WOULD be more able to bring more [and different] people to the Green Party’s electoral tent.There’s also a subsidiary cautionary tale to be told about the perils of political parties putting substantial eggs in a ‘celebrity candidate’s basket, and then finding out much too late to do anything about it [usually post-Election once they hit the House] that they haven’t just bought a lemon … but a limonov [a sort of Soviet hand-grenade, fruitily named for its shape]. The best example for this [and probably the Ur-Example of modern times] is New Zealand First’s 1996 Caucus – a reasonable chunk of whom wound up either defecting or simply being outright defective; perhaps as a result of their being chosen for their ‘star power’ and whom it was imagined they might be able to bring in due to their prominence elsewhere, rather than more traditionally appropriate considerations like quality and length of involvement in the Party, more-than-notional loyalty to its policy, members, and principles, and that sort of thing.Now, I’m not saying that Swarbrick is going to do as former NZ First MP [and current Green Party Chief of Staff] Deborah Morris-Travers did [she was also a bright young thing at the time – being pretty much our youngest-ever Cabinet Minister in her mid-20s] and defect from her own party to wind up propping up a deeply unpopular and unprincipled last-term National Government … but it will be decidedly interesting nonetheless to see what sort of fruit or dividends the Green Party’s latter-day Listing strategy actually achieves.In any case, lest I be misunderstood .. there are, indeed, a number of seriously impressive people on The Greens’ 2017 List. Some of them are even [in my view, at least] well-placed relative to their merits.But it is hard to look at reasonable swathes of the rest of their List without getting the distinct feeling that Fad and Fancy has beaten out Fastidious Factotumry as their governing rubric for promoting their prospective post-polling MPs.
]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/05/31/and-not-a-reason-to-be-missed-if-youre-on-their-little-list-thoughts-on-the-green-partys-2017-list/feed/24This Is Your [Former] Police Minister On Drugshttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/05/24/this-is-your-former-police-minister-on-drugs/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/05/24/this-is-your-former-police-minister-on-drugs/#commentsTue, 23 May 2017 21:57:24 +0000http://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=86875Earlier this week, somebody asked Judith Collins what she thought of Gareth Morgan. Ever the diplomat, her curt response was that if she wound up having to deal with him … she’d “probably take up drugs”. No word, as yet, on whether she’d also find this necessary working with Winston.But this got me thinking. What on earth WOULD our errant former Police Minister be like, as it were, on drugs? Some might say that the stiff-upper-foreheaded [eyebrow permanently, quizzically raised in an implicit expression of barely-contained lower-middle-class rage] terror of boy-racers and certain members of the Press Gallery alike would make for an exceedingly unlikely partaker of recreational pharmacology.Perhaps.But in an age wherein David Cameron’s previous drug-use turns out to be some of the *least* surprising of his antics, is it really so inconceivable?More to the point, thinking about it, if Judith Collins WERE to suddenly take up that exceedingly broad ontological category “drugs” … would anybody actually notice?Consider the evidence.Ecstasy, as we all know, is frequently prone to producing spontaneous smiles [even in the dowdiest of faces], and eruptions of an overwhelming compulsion to dance. To Move. To exercise this huge feeling that you’re the center of the room and attention. And even, perhaps, to bring on a rare state of psychosis in which you start seeing things.Does this sound like an adequate description of a beaming senior political figure rushing the stage at a concert for the purpose of dancing with reckless abandon before a captive audience, and even sighting Elvis?

Meth, meanwhile, can induce some rather potent feelings of dominance. Of power. A certain level of mania which can vastly inflate one’s self-perceptions of strength, physical prowess or ability to exert control over others, Indeed, it can even lead to one feeling literally bulletproof; albeit often at the cost of any shred of empathy.

Now, I’m not necessarily saying that an overweaning obsession with crushing cars [presumably not with one’s bare hands – but you never know with Collins] is the result of a clandestine pattern of crystal use. But it’s pretty undeniable that a fairly broad swathe of Collins’ political career has been indubitably characterized by an (eventually) unfounded self-perception of dang near invulnerability (as demonstrated, for instance, by her conduct during the Oravida Affair – which we’ll touch on shortly); and the apparent air of feeling up to cleaning up the nation’s streets singlehandedly.

Although speaking of stimulants, there’s a certain sort of person who’s commonly reputed as attempting to exercise undue influence upon border-control officials in order to get their seriously valuable white powder into a potentially lucrative market.These people are known as cocaine smugglers.Or, with a sliiiiiiightly different substance [and a very different set of consequences … featuring, ironically, coming into contact with Police *less* thanks to losing the relevant portfolio], Judith Collins circa late 2013 doing exactly that in order to help out the Oravida company with its milk-powder exports.Collins’ subsequent presentations on this front went some ways towards evincing many of the other characteristic effects of long-term drug abuse – such as memory impairment, pronounced vindictiveness/venomosity of personal interaction, and seriously negative impacts upon one’s career. But I digress.One of the overwhelming impressions I came away with from watching how Collins handled the fiery tailspin of the Oravida scandal was just how much overt resemblance it bore to dealing with a harder-core opiate or heroin addict. Now, many of us have thankfully been spared the *particular* displeasures of such an experience, but in my past life as a rather more colourful individual I had the regrettable fortune to come into contact with a number of such individuals. Their behavior, succinctly summated, tended towards the hugely overtly self-entitled, seeming to think that the world at large owed them a living; always adamantly convinced that nothing was ever their fault; whiny, wheedly, and needling; and very much not above utilizing all manner of threats and cajolery of a decidedly underhanded nature [whether emotional or literal blackmail, or even more duplicitous techniques of either persuasion or vengeance].A cursory examination of the timeline of Collins’ conduct certainly seems rather overtly coterminous with much of the above. Particularly the whole ‘threaten the Press Gallery with illicit disclosure of “all sorts of things”‘ episode. Everything was always somebody else’s fault [whether Opposition politicians for uncovering her actions, and later bringing matters to a head; or Press Gallery folks for reporting on the goings-on of the day]; ‘memory’ was a mutable field to be manipulated rather than acknowledged; and so on and so forth.So after all of this, I respectfully submit that it’s not actually all that hard to imagine Your [Former] Police Minister On Drugs.After all, simply looking at the way she’s behaved for much of her time in office is pretty much the next best thing. And, as we can see from the above, incorporates the typologies of behavior for a pretty broad array of the pharmacological spectrum.No mushrooms, though. For that, you’ll just have to get a rough idea from this clip of a somewhat similar personality…Also, no cannabis. Which is perhaps a shame – as if anybody could potentially use a little more “chill” in the present Government, it’d probably be Collins. Or possibly Alfred Ngaro – although in his case, he seems to be far enough away from reality /as-is/ without requiring any *further* impairment.DISCLAIMER: I’m in no way actually endorsing anybody taking drugs. Whilst I would have thought that presenting them in the same context as the words “Judith Collins” and “Uses” would have enough provided admirable disincentive for anyone, ever, to wish to take up a recreational drug habit … this is perhaps somewhat wishful thinking on my part. So just uh … be careful out there – and avoid substance abuse lest you wind up with the crippling imperilment of personal circumstances represented by breaking out in handcuffs. FURTHER DISCLAIMER: I’m not actually stating Judith Collins *is* on drugs. Instead, I’m simply observing that there appears to be quite an ongoing pattern of her previous political conduct which appears to accord rather strongly with the sort of pernicious parsimony of perspective, empathy, or principle which one would feasibly expect from a habitual hard-drug [problematic] user.

The ongoing travails of our nation’s convenience store and dairy operators have grown to such a scale that even those perennial champions of Ostrich Economics in our Government are unable to ignore them. It’s only taken two or perhaps even three years of constant attacks upon the law-abiding proprietors of the country’s small-business and petty bourgeoise, the foundation of an entire political party dedicated to combating the issue, and approximately five months’ worth of highly focused commentary on the subject [including any number of pieces from yours truly] for the National Party to work out that there’s a bit of a problem out there in the community when it comes to shopkeepers being stood-over, beaten up, and potentially left destitute as a DIRECT result of the black market created by the most recent round of excise tax increases on cigarettes.I predicted this would happen (the crime-wave, that is – not the Government having to feign some modicum of concern for same. That remains steadfastly *unpredictable*). Any number of other writers, journalists, and even Government officials said likewise.So it’s not like the National Party have been caught flat-footed on this issue. They’ve had quite some months – years, even [considering how long ago the Maori Party’s set of measures on this issue was passed into law] to prepare their response.And what was that response? Why, it was one of their Ministers – Nicky Wagner, to be precise – claiming that if Dairy-owners were sick of being assaulted in their own places of business, their premises ransacked, that they should stop selling cigarettes.Whatever you feel about the prospective ills of smoking, this is a absolutely amazingly abhorrent proposition. Cigarettes are, for the moment, a legal product to buy and sell. There are reasonably strong arguments that fewer cigarettes being bought and sold is better for our society overall … but it’s extraordinarily hard to comprehend how the Government genuinely seems to think that “it’s your own fault for being in business, then” is a logical – still much less, ethical – response to dairies and other such smaller stores being raided in this manner.Why, it’s arguably tantamount to a family calling up the police upon coming home to find they’ve been burglarized … only to be told that it’s their own fault for owning [or renting] a home, rather than slumming it in Chateau d’Automobile along with a depressingly high proportion of the rest of this nation’s underclass.In fact, it is often said of our Government that they have a ‘Mafia’ style way of operating. That you do what they say, or threats are made of things getting ‘unpleasant’. A fellow National Party Associate Minister, Alfred Ngaro is the latter-day standard bearer for that sort of conduct, after all – getting all sorts of presumably unwelcome attention for threatening to pull funding from community organizations or service providers who dared to not back the Government 100% in this year’s upcoming Election Campaign.But when we look at Wagner’s comments, it becomes plainly apparent that the National Party has precious little in common with Mafioso style ‘organized crime’.After all, the ‘classical’ model for the ‘protection money’ scenario goes like this: the organized crime practitioners create the problem [e.g. “there are some ruffians in this neighbourhood who’re going around vandalizing respectable business premises [who just so happen to be us] … it’d be a *shame* if that happened here”], but then *also* provide the ‘solution’ to said problem [often with the added benefits of protection against other gangs running the same scam] in exchange for a certain rather-more-than-nominal fee. [another reading of this circumstance would perhaps regard it more positively as the ‘Feudal Example’ – and that certainly seems to be the way more long-term or compassionate ‘relationships’ of this nature work in practice, but I digress]Yet when we look at National’s conduct in this area .. what they’ve effectively done is created the ‘problem’ [i.e. the spiraling black market in cigarettes due to the massively ramped up excise tax upon them], whilst actually-outright-refusing to do anything about it. They don’t bother to PROVIDE the ‘protection’ that’s supposed to come as the natural consequence of the ‘protection money’. Because they’d much rather pour resources into tax cuts for the wealthy, or roads, or not bothering to chase up Apple’s tax-bill, or TPPA negotiations, or just about anything other than properly resourcing our overworked Police to deal with all of this escalating ‘petty’ crime.In other words, the National Party’s extant approach to date appears to bear much more in common with the marauding cliques of street-hoodlums who appear responsible for a vast swathe of the attacks on dairy owners of late, rather than anything substantively resembling ‘proper’ organized crime.Now it’s not to say that EVERY party to Governance is running in this particular manner. My own electorate’s perennial answer to the question nobody earning under about 60k a year asked [unless it’s “why can’t we have nice things”], David Seymour, has proposed using the supermassive revenues collected from the tax on selling cigarettes … and giving this money back to proprietors so that they may use it to fund security improvements for their own ships.He’s uh … he’s half right. At best.Because whilst there is much merit to using the excise tax money to pay for better security [as I’ll discuss in a moment], it’s patently ridiculous to put it into some of the measures he’s suggesting. ‘One-at-a-time’ dispenser vending machines for cigarettes are still going to be ram-raidable out of a shop, for instance. And I’m yet to hear anything else even vaguely sensible from him on this score.BUT … consider this.At the moment, the tax raised on cigarettes is perhaps as much as $1.7 BILLION dollars a year, with the most recent round of tax-hikes raising $425 million by themselves.People think that this goes into compensating for the additional costs to the healthcare sector imposed by people getting sick thanks to smoking. Except THAT figure – for the extra costs for additional health services etc. – are $350 million a year.Now, my maths is not exactly the best in the world [there’s a funny story about my .. unenviable results to a 5th form exam in this area which I’ll go into at some future time should I ever wish to REALLY scare a Reserve Bank Governor], but that would appear to be a difference of $1.35 billion dollars.So where’s that additional $1.35 billion going at the moment?Well, the present groaning state of our healthcare services in any number of areas [but most especially mental health – almost coincidentally underfunded by $1.7 billion itself] would appear to suggest it’s unlikely that it’s all being spent on hospitals and doctors.To bring it back to smoking and security (and, in a roundabout way, a far more sensible proposal than Seymour’s), there are two reasons why our nation’s shopkeepers are presently living in fear.One, obviously, is the much-aforementioned black market in cigarettes motivating crime against vendors. That’s bad enough, and ought to be addressed by any future Government who even PRETENDS to care about Law & Order issues for its constituents.But the other is the ongoing underresourcing of our nation’s police. Winston Peters pointed out last year that in per capita terms the number of police here has gone severely backwards since National got into power; and further added as one of his first ‘coalition bottom-lines’ for this year’s Election season that NZ First would be reversing this forthwith. [as a point of additional context, those numbers received their largest increase in quite some time thanks to NZ First securing an extra thousand front-line police plus three hundred support staff the last time NZF was ‘proximate to’ Government with Labour from 2005-2008]

I’m not aware if NZ First has released detailed costings for the proposal to increase policing numbers by an additional 1800 [plus support staff]; although looking at Labour’s similar [and subsequent] proposal to increase policing numbers over time by a full ten thousand, the costing for that august figure appears to be an additional $180 million per year. Which is less than half the amount of additional excise taxes raised by this year’s cigarette tax hike. And a little more than a tenth of the overall tax-take per year from smoking.As further context, the entire policing budget last year was about $1.64 billion.So phrased another way, the shopkeepers of New Zealand are ALREADY paying the ‘protection money’ for their ongoing security in their places of work. And then some. In fact, with the amount of revenue we raise annually from these people, we are LITERALLY able to finance the extant level of ‘law and order’ [which, admittedly, is not necessarily something to be proud about considering how many more crimes go unresolved these days] for every man, woman and child in this country. This is why I’m so incredibly furious with what Nicky Wagner said on behalf of the National Government earlier this month about shopkeepers not having a right to expect law and order if they sell a perfectly legal commodity.Because it’s the sale of that self-same perfectly legal commodity which funds not just all of the (additional healthcare) costs associated with said commodity … but which appears able to entirely adequately provide literally THOUSANDS of police to keep those cigarette vendors – and the rest of the community at large – safe as we go about our daily (and lawful) business.Which means that National is QUITE HAPPY to take the extra cash raised by the above, without providing anything additional in return.We have a word for those who take money for a service without providing anything in return. In fact, it’s the same word we have for those who take goods [like cigarettes, as it happens] without paying for them.“Criminals”. “Thieves”. “Reprobates”.“Neoliberals”.I have this dark suspicion deep in the depths of my mind that the National Party has quite deliberately engineered this particular woeful situation. That they’re more than happy to use smokers and dairies as escalating cash-cows to fund whatever discretionary spending they please [without raising taxes on the wealthy to do so], and use the resultant ‘crime-wave’ situation to keep us ordinary people ‘living in fear’ that we’ll encounter a cigarette-bandit gang of hooligans whilst nipping down to the local dairy for a pint of milk.Whilst it’s true that the Opposition parties have been able to make SOME headway on the Government by pointing to almost-nightly footage of dairy owners recovering in hospital or elsewise severely affected by these standovers, and using these as tangible evidence that National has a weakspot on ‘law and order’ … the plain fact of the matter is that ordinary voters overwhemingly associate ‘law and order’ with the National Party [perhaps it’s the subconscious symbolism of the colour blue….; or maybe it’s the unresolved cognitive dissonance of thinking of Judith Collins as the “crusher” rather than the “crushed by Oravida and caught out pressuring the police to manipulate crime statistics”].So in a situation wherein there’s clearly a pretty negative lack-of-prevalence for ‘law and order’ up and down the country, perhaps they’re more likely to keep supporting National rather than ‘taking a chance’ on the Opposition.This is, of course, an unsubstantiated 4 a.m theory. But it’s difficult to conjure any other even broadly feasible rational explanation for why National just doesn’t seem to care. Other than the plainly obvious emotive reality that they appear to be a bunch of heartless bastards in the extreme.In any case, the purpose of this piece was to lay out a ‘radically reasonable proposal’ for helping to sort this woefully egregious situation.Namely, that instead of pretending that escalating crime is somehow ‘not their problem’, the Government actually put its [in reality ‘our’] money where its mouth is [thankfully, not the ‘fat lip’ of a recently assaulted shopkeeper], and actually PROVIDE the public services like proper policing for which these shopkeepers are, after all, helping the Government to raise in revenue – and for which they’ve already paid anyway via their income taxes etc..Anything else – any other shirking, or cancerious sleight-of-hand in rhetoric – is just outright Criminal Conduct on the National Party’s behalf.It’s that simple.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/05/23/a-radically-reasonable-proposal-for-cigarettes-and-dairy-owners/feed/10Why Our Government Really Has No Interest In “Solving” The Kiwi Mental Health Crisishttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/05/18/why-our-government-really-has-no-interest-in-solving-the-kiwi-mental-health-crisis/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/05/18/why-our-government-really-has-no-interest-in-solving-the-kiwi-mental-health-crisis/#commentsWed, 17 May 2017 23:33:56 +0000http://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=86562Mental health has, over the last few years, become something of a hot-button issue in the minds of many. It’s gone from being the sort of issue on the outer for which advocates have had to desperately raise awareness [think John Kirwan appearing on our screens to attempt to tell us that yes, depression and anxiety are actual things], through to one that is increasingly hard to ignore. Seemingly every citizen – and every political party – knows someone who’s had a serious crisis, required hospitalization or a CAT team, or who would quite possibly still be here today if only our country did mental health treatment & support in a better, and better funded, way than is presently the case.In train with this, this being an Election Year, there are no shortage of party-political broadcasts and press releases talking about how our elected leaders and their aspiring replacements would endeavour to seek to improve the situation. Or, in the case of the National Party, how folk demanding the proper resourcing of our mental health services sector are safely disregardable as “left-wing anti-government protesters“. (which, as a matter of interest, marks something of a quantum difference from their stance in the early 2000s. Then, they held that ‘talk and wait’ was a totally inadequate response from the government of the day [Labour] to the country’s worsening mental health situation. What a difference being in power makes.)And, to be honest, if you’ve had much in the way of dealings with our mental health services over the past few years – and seen first-hand, with your own eyes the tangible effects of a $1.7 billion dollar funding-cut to these services and facilities, in a time of seemingly-exponentially increasing necessity & demand for them … well, if you AREN’T feeling at least a little bit anti-government on the strength of that, then I really would be asking “where’s your head at”.But having thought long and hard about it, it occurs to me that if we are to get serious about attempting to understand and go some ways towards ameliorating our eve-escalating mental health crisis, simply throwing more money at the problem can really only ever be a ‘part’ of the solution. The ambulance, or the hospital-bed at the bottom of the cliff, as it were.And that’s because the hugely increased salience of mental health issues out there in our community isn’t something that’s caused only by chronic underfunding of treatment services. Although obviously, this doesn’t help.Instead, the reasons why we now have more mental health issues than we did fifty or a hundred years ago are threefold.First up, we now know a great deal more about mental health than we once did; and so are therefore better equipped to recognize it. Entire sets of conditions which were completely unknown [or, at the very least, not recognized as being mental health issues] in previous decades are now standardized and diagnosable thanks to innovations like the DSM [which I have my own issues with, for a number of reasons, but I digress]. Whereas once upon a time we regarded returned servicemen or combat veterans as simply suffering from ‘cowardice’, we now recognize PTSD as a serious and enduring condition, for instance. And many other examples besides.Alongside this, increased awareness around mental health issues – both on the part of the general public, and by practitioners – has lead to reduced (although importantly, not eliminated) stigma, and therefore a greater number of people annually come forward to seek treatment for their conditions. Thanks to outreach efforts like the aforementioned John Kirwan campaign, tens of thousands of ordinary New Zealanders are now better appraised that things they’ve had to grapple with on a daily basis and which may have seriously disrupted the courses of their lives, are *not* simply ‘the way things are’ – and are instead, to varying extents, treatable or manageable with corresponding increases in quality of life.That’s something to be celebrated.Although again, it is not the full story.The main reason, I believe, why we are presently facing a ‘mental health crisis’ has rather little to do with either of these things. Although they certainly make it a little easier to gauge the scale of the harms too many of our population are currently grappling with.Instead, what has caused such a powerful increase in people being afflicted with mental health disorders is our economic system. I am not kidding.We already know that in cases where illnesses are not congenital or otherwise intrinsic to the individual sufferer’s neurology, that particular conditions of life can cause or at the very least considerably exacerbate health conditions. Working down a coal-mine for sixteen hours a day will, almost inevitably lead to an array of negative health impacts in the lungs, and with things like Vitamin D deficiency, for instance; and lacking the money or the time to invest in proper nutrition is similarly correlated with reduced wellbeing. Labouring in constant fear of economic ruination due to parlous job-security or being unable to afford to keep your house thanks to the way the speculative market in property works … also cannot be particularly healthy.My contention is that the way we run our economic system – and thus, by extension, so very much of our society as a whole – is the metaphorical equivalent of consigning an almost impossibly vast segment of our population to working down that ideological coal-mine.And therefore, that if we are seriously expecting much of our adult population to spend considerable proportions of their working week away from their families, in the absence of community, and subsisting in chasing seemingly ever-decreasing real wages lest they wind up condemned to the latter-day propertarian purgatory of finding themselves and their family forced to live in a car … then this is quite plainly not the template for a healthy society.If you want to find pretty much bona-fide causatory factors for the onset of mental illness, then significant stress, social isolation/atomization, and uncertainty are the de rigeur go-tos. They are also the aspects of the ‘inhuman condition’ living in our present economic environment. I would further add that the abrogation of an overarching sense of ‘purpose’ in societies which for some inexplicable reason still believe they’re living after the ‘end of history‘ have only worsened these things. We are, after all, capable of tolerating quite some suffering and discomfort in pursuit of grander and higher purpose – yet the only one of *those* which seems to be in the offing with the way things get ‘done’ today, is minuscule improvements in the company bottom line “curiously” never seem to ‘trickle down’ to the ordinary worker. Life, in other words, has no ‘point’. Other than, of course, a somewhat frantic scrabble to ‘survive’, carried out in some of the most unnatural ways possible.Fight Club (a fascinating exploration of mental health under late capitalism) probably puts this far more eloquently – in part at least – than I’ll ever be able to, so take a brief moment to enjoy a seminal quote.

The expert evidence agrees with me. We are not living anything close to ‘naturally’, and therefore people are falling (mentally) sick as a result. We’re simply not built nor evolved to spend so much of our time cubicle-bound and not cultivating healthy bonds with others. And the ‘attempted solutions’ proffered to us by the marketplace are fundamentally iniquitous in the extreme. Conspicuous consumption doesn’t fix these issues (even if one could afford to do so in the first instance); squalid living conditions because that’s all you can afford, and a toxic working environment because that’s all you could find simply make things worse.So as welcome as it is that we’re FINALLY having a more strident conversation about beginning to more properly resource our mental health sector … it is unlikely to ever be enough. Even presuming National somehow miraculously grew a conscience at some point between now and their next Budgetary announcement and put the full $1.85 billion being asked for into this part of our healthcare system, we’d STILL find ourselves with ever more New Zealanders winding up having to make use of those services. Because it wouldn’t address the underlying causes behind the mental health crisis.The economic ones derived from the choices which successive governments – whether Labour or National – have chosen to make over the last thirty years.Ted Kaczynski – better known as The Unabomber – covered this topic in his Manifesto document. I do not endorse his eventual actions, and an array of elements in his published analysis are potentially somewhat askew; but in light of the notion advanced above, the following quote represents an interesting perspective:

Now, I have my own thoughts about anti-depressants. One of which is that for some people they can be pretty invaluable – quite literally life-saving, even. But the core kernel of the above is in accord with what I am saying. Namely, that our Government has very little interest in actually addressing what’s behind many people’s increasing experience of mental illness; and instead, is now talking seriously about investing SOME modicum of money in ameliorating some of the worse manifestations of these natural human consequences of neoliberalism, because it’s easier to havea ‘conversation’ phrased in impenetrable bureaucratese [which, according to noted mental health campaigner Mike King, is pretty much what our Government seems intent on doing] than it is to engage in serious dialogue as to why they’re not more open to reforming our economic system.It’s as simple as that.Once again: I have absolutely ZERO issue with National, Labour, or any other party putting more money into our already-overburdened mental health services. This is vital, and it is to be welcomed and applauded as and when it actually turns up. [subject to whether further neoliberal idiocy is forcibly injectedalongside it, of course…; and, for that matter, the seemingly-inevitable gap between the pittance which politicians are often keen to put in, and how much is actually required to deal with the present case-load let alone increases]But unless we go past the issue of underfunding of our treatment services – start to have the serious conversation about what ACTUALLY constitutes prevention [which, as the old adage enjoins us to remember, is almost invariably better [particularly in these situations of mental health illness] than ‘cure’], then we are only going to wind up having this exact same conversation once more in a few years’ time, when the NEXT round of folk needing to use mental health services turn out to be so much vaster in scope and numbers than those whomst we’ve budgeted for.Jiddu Krishnamurti once wrote that it was “no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”. At this stage, folk aren’t even managing to do that, and so we’ve really started to lose sight of the important conversation of how to live /healthily/. Part of this is, arguably, by design. Because the path to ‘health’ – whether physical or more especially, mental/emotional/psychological – inevitably entails turning away from the trajectory down which our political-economy seems hell-bound to move as if in the grips of a teleological rapture. And therefore, if people are beset & riddled by health issues, and enervated from overwork or stress, with the organic bonds of community and solidarity riven asunder by the ‘natural’ pressures … then they are considerably less likely to bother thinking about ‘overturning the apple-cart’. Because they’re quite understandably far more interested in seeking to scrape together the pittance required to purchase even a cast-off core from same.I suppose all of this calls to mind – appropriately enough – a quotation from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

“Have you ever speculated, Mr Harding, that perhaps your are impatient with your wife because she doesn’t meet your mental requirements?”“Perhaps, but you see the only thing I can really speculate on, Nurse Ratched, is the very existence of my life – with or without my wife – in terms of the human relationships, the juxtaposition of one person to another: the form, the content.”“Harding, why don’t you knock off the bullshit and get to the point?”“This is the point. This IS the point, Taber. It’s not bullshit. I’m not just talking about my wife; I’m talking about my LIFE!I can’t seem to get that through to you!I’m not just talking about one person – I’m talking about everybody!I’m talking about form! I’m talking about content!I’m talking about interrelationships!I’m talking about God, the Devil; Hell, Heaven!Do you understand?! Finally?!!”

That’s pretty much where we’re at here. I’m not just talking about an overhaul of the mental health system here – still much less simply twiddling around the edges a bit.I’m talking about the very nature of our society. Its “form”, its “content”, and most ESPECIALLY its “interrelationships”.I will be genuinely surprised [and inestimably pleased] if any of our political class dare – as part of what’s set to become this year’s election debates – to name the specter whose rapacious possessionary antics have fed so perniciously into the mental health crisis of today.But it is called “Neoliberalism”.And until we banish it utterly; it remains highly, regrettably unlikely that our peoples’ conditions will seriously improve.The Government, therefore, has absolutely no interest in “solving” [as opposed to “managing”, I guess] the Mental Health Crisis for one very simple reason.Because to do so – to really, truly, meaningfully do so – would be tantamount to abolishing themselves and all they stand for as part and parcel of the process.It’s as simple – and as complexly insidious – as that.

Well, the dust has already started to clear; and the inevitable, inordinate triumphalism appears to have begun in earnest. No sooner had news of Macron’s 65-35 victory over ‘the dreaded’ Le Pen become public, than the caterwauling chorus of ‘usual suspects’ had come out of the woodwork to proclaim this some combination of the Midway and the D-Day in the ongoing fight of once-dominant neoliberal globalism back against the newly resurgent ‘spectre’ of more economically left nationalism. But was it really?Either the sort of triumph to be celebrated; or some sort of implicit death-blow to the wave of popular nationalism [widely, and wrongfully derided by frightened elites – and their lackeys – as “Naziism”] presently sweeping the globe, I mean?Of course not.Take a look at this chart, sourced from the popular Political Compass website.

[Political Compass concept & graphic sourced from Political Compass]Now, obviously Political Compass is not necessarily always entirely accurate; but it is a point agreed upon by quite a raft of commentators that Macron is well to the right of Le Pen in an economic sense.What this means in practice, then, is that any number of so-called “left-wing” activists chalking up Macron beating Le Pen by a closer-than-expected margin … really ought to take a moment to consider what they’re actually celebrating.It would, to put it both in New Zealand terms and rather bluntly, be basically akin to getting wildly excited about David Seymour beating a slightly more extreme Labour-New Zealand First coalition.Because apparently, a certain skerrick of social liberalism beats something much closer to an actual left-wing economic position every time.Indeed, about the nicest characterization I’ve yet found of why so many nominal lefties are queuing up to sing the praises of Macron goes something like this:“Do you hear the people sing?Singing the song of boring menHe’s a shady neoliberalBut at least he’s not Le Pen!”Phrased in absolute terms, then, it is exceptionally difficult to conceive of Macron’s win as being a victory for the forces of leftism and progressivism.Further, if looked at in relative terms, then everybody championing Macron as some sort of Le Pen-ender has just taken an inordinately large gamble on what’s quite likely a very questionable horse.There is a very real risk that Macron’s new party will fail to make meaningful headway in the upcoming French legislative elections. This will leave him in a precarious position as applies his ability to propose and implement policy. Or, worse, he might find himself actually able [whether in co-operation with the French economic right, or off his party’s own bat] to advance strongly neoliberal policy.What does this mean in practice? Well, in either situation it seems fairly plausible that the National Front will be the likely beneficiary. Thirty five percent of the Presidential vote is certainly not a winning number. But such a strong performance does indeed give some credence to Le Pen’s claims that the Front National is now the leading opposition party of France.Situations of chaos and/or iniquity from ruling parties [with the apparent, and unfortunate exception of New Zealand] rarely fail to benefit their main opposition counterparts.This is particularly the case if we consider the very likely phenomenon of ongoing falling turnout in French electoral contests, heralded by disenchantment with what Macron represents. There is an argument that falling turnout often benefits ‘incumbent-establishment’ parties [as has been seen here in New Zealand in recent years, wherein the ‘missing million’ NZ voters helps inordinately to keep the National Party in power – on grounds that if these people DID vote, they’d disproportionately do so for parties to the left of National]; however, as can be seen from the below infographic, it also appears to be the case that the adherents of certain sorts of parties – with very ‘committed’ supporters – are less likely to ‘drop off’ in situations of overall declining turnout than more mainstream voters.

[Infographic sourced from the Financial Times]Or, in other words, even if apathy and antipathy toward Macron DOESN’T lead to more voters switching over to Le Pen … a sufficient number of Macron voters simply choosing not to vote for anybody at all at the next Election can also help to significantly boost the main anti-Macron opposition candidate by comparison.As a demonstration of this phenomenon in practice, one only has to look at last November’s US Presidential contest – wherein Clinton lost not so much because Trump managed to beat her in a few battleground states … but because she failed fairly comprehensively to get many of the people who’d had no problem voting for Obama to turn-out on her behalf. Some of them, it is true, wound up switching over to Trump on the motivation that he’d be a better President for the ordinary American Worker than Clinton had positioned herself as … but many more just simply didn’t vote.

[image sourced from the Washington Post]Further, if we consider the historical evidence … if there’s one surefire way to generate popular support for fascism, it seems to be out-and-out hard-neoliberal economic policy. Casting our minds back to Greece once the Troika started to feel able to exercise its untrammeled will shows exactly this trend in action. Every successive round of EU-inflicted economic pain was tumultuously accompanied by a Golden Dawn surge in the polls and in the polis. Even though ‘Neoliberalism’ as such didn’t exist in the 1920s, the broadly analogous conditions in Germany and an array of other European countries certainly seemed to produce a ‘particular’ set of political outcomes within them. Ones with flashy uniforms, and striking insignia, if you get my drift…So really, if people think that supporting a strongly neoliberal Presidential candidate is the best way to ‘head off fascism’ … then the Story Thus Far of Europe At Large would appear to suggest that – if anything – the CONVERSE is true.Time will tell whether this perception turns out to be accurate; but it’s additionally worth considering how this result will most likely be read by the Doyens of the Eurozone. Namely, as a tacit endorsement for whatever they’ve got planned next, after the potential ‘danger-flashing signals red’ [REVERSE COURSE!] ‘suggestion’ represented by #Brexit.It’s probably not accurate to state – as some breathless pundits already appear wont to do – that the defeat for Le Pen represents some sort of turning [back] point in the ongoing struggle of globalism/neoliberalism versus nationalism and nativism. It is certainly a prima-facie setback for one ‘side’; but by no means a potentially fatal body blow.But about the only thing even relatively ‘certain’ at this point in time, is that having already openly endorsed Clinton, and then moved further to the right with Macron … the next figure picked for hagiographizing by a certain sort of ‘left-wing’ activist will almost undoubtedly be further to the right again.How long, I wonder, before we’re at “ALL HAIL ANGELA MERKEL! DEFENDER OF SANITY!” [and never mind her own seriously questionable legacy – from a left-wing perspective – in Greece].Because that is SURELY where this path leads.Oh, and remember always – oppose the status quo and become a genuine threat to the neoliberal agenda? You may very well find yourself labelled a Nazi.

Yesterday, National MP Jami-Lee Ross’s bill to fine car window washerspassed its first reading in Parliament. This got me thinking. Intersection window-washers are an annoying – yet constant – feature of urban life here in Auckland [and, no doubt, in other parts of the country]. It’s seemingly impossible to come to a major traffic-light interchange in some parts of the city at rush-hour without finding two or three of them, armed with their trusty pump-bottles and squeegee-wipers and hoping for a pittance of pennies or a cig.Some regard them as a pest; and certainly, seemingly every friend-circle has an account of a window-washer getting quite intimidating in their errant pursuit of your precious portions of carefully hoarded spare change. But does this mean that fining them between $150 and $1000 is necessarily the right way to counteract this issue?A reality check is plainly needed here.The people engaging in window-washing are, for the most part, unemployed and to a certain extent possibly unemployable. They may be subsisting on a benefit [which, let’s remember, even the Minister of Social Development herself implicitly stated one couldn’t survive on without engaging in criminal behavior]; and one has to wonder – if prevented from attempting to earn a bit of extra cash window-washing, where else might they go in order to try and make ends meet.If these people are literally only taking in two hundred dollars per week from official and legitimate income sources (assuming they’re even able to get a benefit in the first place) out of which family, living costs and utilities must be paid, then what does imposing a fine that might be as much as five weeks’ income do? It either forces them further into poverty [thus providing an additional impetus for other extra-legal conduct – potentially of a more harmful and anti-social nature], or WINZ takes pity on the level of hardship which such a crippling financial obligation would inflict and allows them to come up with a payment-plan of a few dollars a week, whilst putting up their benefits by an amount slightly less than that in order to pay for it. Either way, at best the problems involved are simply shifted around – and at worst, magnified in scope.There is a stereotype of some long-term beneficiaries that they’re lazy and would prefer to loaf around on a run-down couch rather than getting out into the world and attempting to scrape a living. I would respectfully contend that the ongoing existence of window-washers on our streets goes some ways to proving that this perception is definitely not always accurate. It’s not exactly the most comfortable way to earn money – standing around an intersection all day in the hot sun or the driving rain, at the mercy of both the elements and the relative kindness (or occasional insults) of car-mobile strangers.I do not say this to romanticize the window-washer or what he does; but instead to suggest that there must be SOME form of driving work-ethic in there somewhere if they’re genuinely up for putting themselves through such a daily experience in pursuit of a few coins. At least street-busking is often a sit-down job.And to those for whom the solution is inevitably and always “na-na why don’t you get a job?” … well, like I said above, a goodly number of these folks are quite possibly unemployable [we do, after all, live in an age wherein having a criminal record appears to make it very difficult to even find work as a supermarket trolley-boy]; and in any case, with the way our economy is fairly deliberately set up to maintain a constant level of unemployment high enough to keep a lid on inflation, there just simply aren’t enough jobs (particularly *accessible* jobs) to go round.I’d be very interested to know, if you asked them, how many of these window-washer folk would be pretty keen on actual employment if given the chance. Certainly, it’s hard to imagine how putting in several hours of work a day in occasionally somewhat arduous conditions for literal pocket-change could be preferable to even a minimum-wage or part-time job.But to return to our general analysis of the situation – what we can adduce from all of the above is that we have a group of people large enough to necessitate making a law about, living in poverty (or pretty close to it), possibly drawing a benefit, and who have the evident wherewithal to work in some capacity – yet who’re obviously not participating in the labour-market for some reason.Passing a law to penalize these people financially for getting out and about and attempting to be low-key entrepreneurial, then, doesn’t actually solve any of the above list of problems. Indeed, as previously argued, it might well wind up making some of them worse. I’d also question whether our already wildly overstretched Police [for which you can, once again thank National] would actually be in a position to effectively enforce the law – what’re they going to do, divert cops who could be (not-) responding to assaults on dairy owners or other crimes to stand vigilant watch at intersections every rush-hour? Even if that WAS the plan (and honestly, knowing this Government, I have a depressing feeling that’s exactly as much thought as has gone into enforcement of this potential new law), window-washers would simply keep a lookout, observe patterns in policing deployment, and set up shop at non-covered intersections on a rotating basis. But I digress.If we are serious about addressing the issue of intersection window-washers, whilst also improving our communities and helping out the people driven to window-washing in the first place … this punitive non-solution is NOT what is needed. Not least because it’s simplistic annoyance masquerading as serious policy, which won’t even address the surface manifestation of the issue – let alone the root cause.Instead, as soon as I thought about all of this, and properly construed the issue as more than just something for motorists to get annoyed about … it became abundantly clear that a very different approach would be needed.In specia, something like the “New Kiwi Deal” policy-set which New Zealand First announced back in 2015.A more detailed write-up can be found in my earlier article linked above; but for the sake of ease, I’ll run through the basics again here.New Zealand has a serious problem with long-term, endemic unemployment. Obviously, this doesn’t affect ALL beneficiaries – but for a substantial number, once they’re out of work for awhile they tend to *stay* out of work for quite a lengthy period. There are a number of reasons for this, ranging from the difficulty of finding a job in some areas of New Zealand [and people not being in a position to uproot their lives and move to another part of the country in pursuit of work], through to the cumulative effect of long absences from the workforce causing an employer to be less likely to hire you, or the acquisition of a criminal record which functions as a serious barrier to employment.However it happens, it’s a reality for thousands if not tens of thousands of New Zealanders. And it represents a serious waste of New Zealand’s human potential and labour force. Because at the moment, these long-term unemployed are effectively paid a pittance to jump through endless regimens of WINZ-provided quasi-bureaucratic hoops under the guise of nominally searching for often straight-up nonexistent (for them, anyway) work.What New Zealand First’s ‘New Kiwi Deal’ policy package proposes to do is seriously reduce this waste and improve our communities in the process, by instead employing these beneficiaries on a fair wage to engage in community works projects. This makes use of the surplus labour which these people represent, whilst also providing a sense of purpose to the workers thus employed far in excess of anything a WINZ seminar would be able to manage, and turns a swathe of our social welfare from its present situation of effectively subsidizing poverty and iniquity through to a new purpose of funding much-needed public works and community development.There’s even quite some precedent for such a scheme both in New Zealand – in the form of the Ministry of Works, and the Works Progress Administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal” in America. (You can probably tell rightaway where Winston got the name from).Now, the reason why I’m citing this in connection with our present postulated “plague” of window-washers is simple. These people are in poverty, have the wherewithal to engage in at least some form of labour (even if what they’re doing at present is not especially socially beneficial nor productive), and are doing so in a form we *don’t* like in order to supplement whatever (presumably welfare-based) income they DO have.If we actually want to help these people and solve this situation – whilst generating a positive result for the taxpayer – then it seems patently obvious that instead of leaving them to languish at lamp-posts with squirt-bottles in pursuit of narry enough coinage to procure a loaf of bread … we should be employing these folks for fair renumeration to actually do something *productive* with their time for all of us.This idea will, sadly, never have occurred to Jami-Lee Ross, the National MP behind this present bill – because in his rich person’s world, the problem of “poor people” [and, more especially, *visible* poor people] is one which can simply be swept back under the neoliberal rug through the imposition of ruinous fines upon them should they DARE disturb the car-owning class’s daily commute to and from their labours.But if we’re interested in solving this issue – GENUINELY solving it rather than simply beating it back and covering it up – then something like what I’m proposing is probably the best way forward.Anything else which you might happen to hear from the National Party on this issue … is nought but simple Window Washing.

Back in the first weeks after Trump was elected, some more … alarmist minds insisted on comparing the period we’re living in now to the early 1930s. In Germany. Saying things like “if you’ve ever sat bored in History class and wondered how it felt – wondered what you’d have done … well, wonder no longer. What you do now is what you would have done then. How it feels now is how it felt back then.” And other similar wild oversimplifications.It’s an interesting exercise in historical synthesis, to be sure; but for a number of folks, the comparison was to decidedly the wrong War With Germany warm-up period.Instead, for some weeks now I’ve been watching some of the brighter minds of my sphere insist instead upon the idea that we’re actually living in a historical re-rub of 1914. That rather than simply watching an autocratic individual begin an arc of ascent into the political supernal … we’re witnessing the squaring off of two Great Powers and their attendant allies in a complex, hypersensitive arrangement which might very well presage a serious and significant armed conflict – a shooting war – between these twinned armed camps. Provided, of course, that the right spark arrived with which to set the entire powderkeg ablaze. A “Proud Tower”, if you will.At first, I thought this was dismissable as the same sort of alarmist rhetoric which saw endless invocations of “TRUMP IS LITERALLY HITLER” [or, more superciliously, because some millennials apparently insist upon political comparison being phrased in terms of pop-cultural references … “TRUMP IS LITERALLY VOLDEMORT”].And then, at a little after 13:00 Friday, we received news that the Trump Administration had fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at an airbase in Syria. Or, in other words, that America had attacked a Russian ally, by bombarding a military installation which also harboured Russian personnel. About the only consolation thus far is that a pre-warning to the Russians means it’s unlikely that any actual Russian casualties have been sustained. And, for that matter, that the choice of cruise missiles rather than bombers, meant a lack of overt American casualties. This latter point matters not so much due to any concern on my part for the lives of American servicemen – but more because had there been American deaths as part of this retaliatory operation, then further escalation on the US’s part would have been made vastly more likely. An exceptionally scarier prospect indeed.The world now waits and watches with amply baited breath to see what Putin and Russia will say or do in response. Not for the first time, the hopes for continued (broad) peace in our time rest upon burly Russian shoulders and pragmatic Slavic restraint.To be sure, it is not the first time we’ve all – collectively – found ourselves in this situation. Probably the best example from the later 20th century is, obviously, the Cuban Missile Crisis.But then, despite the speculation that his medicinal use of methamphetamine might have altered his judgement [leading to a vastly more confrontational outcome at the Vienna Summit in 1961], the West had a seriously perspicacious and competent leader – a statesman, even – in the form of President Kennedy. To echo Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s ringing words to Dan Quayle in 1988 after the latter had compared himself to Kennedy … of Trump, it is easily possible to say of him “You’re no Jack Kennedy!“Not least because when it came to Kennedy’s parlous position in 1963 with the Missile Crisis, Kennedy at least had a clear and compelling sense of his place in history. In fact, he’d just read a book – The Guns of August – about the situation which lead to World War One; and was therefore very much acutely aware of how even small flash-points, when not treated with utmost calm and restraint, could easily boil over into giant and almighty continent (or even world) engulfing conflagrations.The policy pursued towards Russia as the result of that particular WMD-related encounter, therefore, was one of avoiding rather inflaming conflict – lest the unthinkable happen. Phrased another way, I suspect I’ve just implicitly said that a man with a well-documented meth habit may actually have had better perspicacity and impulse-control than the present President of the United States.And having said that, as bad as President Trump’s subsonic outburst has been … it could always have been worse. Hillary Clinton suggested in an interview conducted the same day as the missile striek that had SHE been Commander-in-Chief, that the United States would have gone further – MUCH further – in its bellicose actions against Syria. Instead of simply temporarily shutting down one airfield and damaging a few planes [for that’s pretty much what this attack has done], she would have had the collective might of the US Military attempt to destroy pretty much the lot. And, given her comments about Russia aired in the same interview, one can only wonder how much more overtly aggressive towards the Russians she might have been in the process.Although it is interesting to invoke the specter of “Clintonian” foreign policy in the context of what happened Friday. Not just because of the natural questions as to what the alternative to Trump would have done; but because there are several precedents drawn from her husband’s tenure as President which are pretty overtly similar to what we’ve just witnessed.The first and most obvious of these is the narrowly-averted *actual shooting engagement* between Russia and NATO which took place during the Serbian intervention in 1999. Then, as with today, Russian forces were again deployed at an airbase which the US and its allies wished rendered inoperable by adversarial hands. Troops from the UK were sent in – and were ordered straight-up by the American General acting as NATO Supreme Commander Europe to engage the Russians with force. Needless to say … this would almost certainly have lead to a patently undesirable escalation of (literal) conflict between NATO and Russia, with the very real risk of World War Three ensuing as a result. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed (including a young, pre-stardom James Blunt – yes, *that* James Blunt), and the American order to British forces was countermanded by the UK’s General Mike Jackson.The second concerns the cruise missile strike which Bill Clinton ordered against a pharmaceutical factory located in Sudan, which was alleged to have been manufacturing a nerve gas that might have been put to use by Al Qaeda. Now, as it happens, the “evidence” which underpinned this decision was later thrown into some rather strong doubt by even the Americans themselves. And, in concert with the now demonstrably spurious assertions of Iraq allegedly possessing vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (other than, presumably, the ones America sold them in the first place), just goes to show that the American track-record of alleging that Middle Eastern countries are in possession of nerve agents is not exactly one hundred per cent.My point is that the comparable actions from recent American history to what occurred Friday do not necessarily suggest that Trump’s course here is the particularly wise one. Hitting wrong targets on the basis of faulty intelligence; and engaging in a dangerous dance of death by ‘prodding the Great Bear’ … are not what many would call fine examples of Presidential prudence. It is a dangerous form of international engagement indeed which only avoids serious escalation through the patience and valued restraint of the Russians.

Another Election Year, another desperate bid from Family First to attempt to get s59 of the Crimes Act revoked. Indeed, if it weren’t for their recent slew of agitation against the reform of abortion laws, and side-campaign to attempt to ban pornography, you could well be forgiven for thinking they’re something of a ‘one-issue’ (or should that be ‘one trick’) entity.What’s sparked this latest attempt at going back in legislative time by ten years was a speech NZ First Leader Winston Peters gave last Friday about getting serious on the recent wave of youth-crime. Winston’s mention of the potential desirability of dropping s59 in its current form was then seized upon by McCoskrie on Sunday as evidence that the latter’s longed-for Day of Reckoning and Repeal was shortly to be at hand; followed in short order by some malicious gremlin deciding to flagrantly misrepresent the Party’s stance on Wikipedia by attempting to proclaim that s59 repeal was now an NZ First non-negotiable coalition bottom line, and Sue Bradford going on the attack on this issue against Winston through the media yesterday morning. Oh, and somewhere along the way Winston clarified New Zealand First’s position on this issue as actually being to support a referendum about repealing s59 rather than just getting rid of it straight away.So far, this is pretty much about normal for an Election Year. Some conservative group brings up an old gripe from the Clark era, gets quietly annoyed that their supposed ‘friends’ in the National Party have no actual plans to do anything about the issue, and then finds common cause with another electoral vehicle as a result. But what makes things different this time around is that with New Zealand First looking increasingly likely to be in a position of strong influence on whomever the next Government will be, there is now a rather heightened chance that something might happen.It therefore behooves me to take a brief look at the ‘anti-smacking law’ and the history around this issue – not least because, as far as I can see, a number of voices on both sides of the resurgent debate on s59 are being openly disingenous and are therefore (perhaps ironically) in need of correction.The first point about s59 that ABSOLUTELY must be made (because it’s generally where EVERYBODY – both Pro and Anti its retention – starts to get things wrong), is that section 59 does not, in point of fact, make it illegal to smack your child. Take a look at subsection (1). There, you’ll find a list of circumstances – which are, to be honest, pretty broad-ranging in their scope – wherein a parent is “justified in using force” in relation to their child. These include “tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting” [an exemption to a legislative ‘ban’ on smacking so broad one could feasibly drive the proverbial truck through it], as well as specific allowances in law for using force to prevent your child from injuring themselves [for instance, by touching a hot stove, perhaps], injuring another, engaging in criminal activity, or being offensive or disruptive. In other words, it’s a pretty broad list; and I feel pretty sure that most reasonable use of reasonable force in child-raising probably fits in somewhere in the above. Now where it gets complex is when we read subsection (1) in concert with subsections (2) and (3). Because here we find odd language about “force for the purposes of correction” not being legally justified – which flatly contradicts (and deliberately so) the allowable use of force as applies our children outlined in ss(1).It arguably gets even worse when we add in subsection (4); which attempts to reconcile all of the above by setting out that the police have the “discretion” not to prosecute parents who smack [or use other force on] their children if there’d be no “public interest” in doing so due to the force involved being “inconsequential”.Why is this a bad thing? Because our laws ought guarantee at least a modicum of certainty to those who are supposed to be bound by them; and through a combination of confusing language – and more especially, the relegation of what *actually* constitutes an offence against the act to the judgement of an individual policeman … this law fairly patently does not do that.Now as it happens, I do think there’s a reasonably strong argument that the old s59 which Bradford’s bill sought to replace WAS in need of some reform. Under the previous legislation, parents had access to what was known as a “reasonable force” defence when it came to hitting their children. This might sound well and good, but in practice it allowed somewhat extreme disciplinary measures like whipping a child, even in such a manner as to leave disfigurement, to be protected actions under the law. I’d like to think that even committed pro-smacking parents would agree that that’s too far. Particularly when it later turned out that the “reasonable force” defence apparently meant certain parents thought they were justified in dealing to their errant offspring with an array of implements ranging from a jug-cord up to a full-on assault with a tent pole.But if we look at how the ‘new’ s59 is worded, it seems an extraordinarily convoluted way of removing (or, if you like, redefining in a more tightly constrained way) a defence to a charge of assault or parental mistreatment. And this is before we even begin to consider the potential issues inherent in making the enforcement of this law a matter for individual police discretion (some of which we’ve already seen when it comes to the police discretionary power for low-level cannabis offences).I’m therefore going to break ranks somewhat with many of the other voices on the liberal left and respectfully suggest that maybe Winston IS on to something here, and that there is, in fact, a case to be made for getting rid of the present section 59.Although I almost certainly differ from most of the ‘conservative’ voices calling for the legislation’s repeal in also wanting something better – which does much the same thing – erected in its place.Because even if we agree that there’s an argument to be made for the use of force as a regular part of parenting, there remains a troubling proclivity for some Kiwi parents to take this way too far – and wind up doing serious (even fatal) damage to those weakest among us entrusted to their care. The very real risk, if s59 is indeed replaced with either nothing or a much too loose piece of legislation, is that we will wind up giving a sanctified ‘claim of right’ carte-blanche to outright abusers and repugnant acts.As noted above, even the comparatively straightforward precepts of the old, pre-Bradford section 59 already allowed if not encouraged parental uses of force that are difficult in good conscience to justify.Which is, perhaps, why the previous Parliament who passed the bill in question into law did so so resoundingly. One hundred and thirteen MPs supported the bill (a majority of New Zealand First MPs among them, as it happens), because they knew that it would be a fundamental injustice to leave the law as it was. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they got it right when it came to putting forward a replacement enactment, of course; but it does mean we should think very carefully about what shall fill the void left by an abolished s59 before actually attempting to get rid of it.This puts one in the mind of the noted conservative writer G.K. Chesterton’s famous maxim about never tearing down a fence before one has first understood why it was put up. I’ve often had pause to wonder whether some of the anti-anti-smacking people have actually bothered to consider this, instead of simply working themselves up into a feel-good lather about the dire depredations of much-maligned “PC GONE MAD”, which seemed to saturate the latter years of the dying Clarke regime without any necessity of facts.In any case, I’m not entirely convinced that the repeal of section 59 will actually have a measurable effect upon the present wave of highly publicized assaults and robberies being committed by young people, which is what Winston appeared to be suggesting on Friday. If anything, this proposition might be regarded as being of considerably less importance for this matter than another policy of New Zealand First’s – the earlier announced coalition bottom line demand for an extra 1800 front-line police officers – that is almost certain to have vastly more impact.It’s probably not surprising that the so-called ‘anti-smacking’ law remains inestimably controversial in certain circles. It’s a complex piece of legislation, beset with a number of obvious shortcomings. As a frequent democracy, we ought be able to have a mature discussion about whether the s59 that we’ve got is actually ‘fit for purpose’ – and whether there are better ideas out there with which to replace it.I’m not necessarily wild about the way Winston has chosen to bring s59 back into the national political conversation this year; but it seems pretty clear that there are issues here deserving of consideration, and which provide obvious potential grounds for legal reform.We can but hope that further dialogue in this area means we eventually get the law right; rather than continuing to live with a questionable compromise.

Late last week, the abysmal healthcare ‘reform’ proposal of Paul Ryan’s which Trump had inexplicably chosen to support … failed fairly unequivocally. How badly did it flounder? It didn’t even make it to First Reading, on grounds that even other Republicans could not bring themselves to vote for it. A full explication of the ‘hows’ and the ‘whys’ behind Ryan’s seven-year political project imploding in such spectacular fashion is beyond the scope of this piece; but looking at this whole – seemingly Fawltian – situation, a number of insights presented themselves.The first, unquestionably, is that this was a singularly ridiculous political area for Trump to decided to get directly involved any attempt to replace Obamacare – let alone with ‘Ryancare’ – as flagship policy. It has been said in response to the old adage about “Mussolini made the trains in Italy run on time” that “Even God Himself could not make the trains in Italy run on time.” Looking at the benighted state of just about EVERY serious healthcare reform proposal at the national level over the last few decades of American political history (Remember what Hillary USED to be famous for?) … I feel pretty confident in stating that “Even God Himself could not make healthcare workable and affordable in America for all”. It’s just a complete and total quagmire – where political capital goes to valiantly die in thousand-page reports and insurance industry tacit backhanders.Opposition to “Obamacare” was, indeed, a Republican Party talking-point hot-button issue par-excellence for much of the last Presidency … but it must have been patently obvious that both i) an improved healthcare affordability mechanism [within the idiotic insurance/market based paradigm which America for some reason continues to insist upon] was going to be incredibly difficult to deliver, let alone quickly; and ii) that the Paul Ryan MOAR MARKET LESS TAX approach was something vastly more amenable to the Republicans’ elitist backers [well, some of them anyway] than it was to the millions of ordinary working class Americans who helped sweep Trump to Power.In other words, the very decision to put all his Presidential weight and seemingly-mighty impetus behind RyanCare represents in the most tangible possible form evidence of a corruption and a co-option of what Trump’s “I’ll make the Republicans a Workers’ Party” political project was supposed to be about.Which leads me handily on to my SECOND point.Namely, that there IS a better way of doing healthcare out there – one which a fairly vast swathe of the developed world [and, for that matter, the better parts of the developING world] have long been on board with, which tends to provide better care to more people for lower cost [to both individual, employer, and, at the rate things are going, in terms of actual service provision, it may even work out better for the taxpayer] – and that’s the “Single Payer” model. Or, as we call it EVERYWHERE ELSE, the “Public Healthcare System”. [the fact that Americans insist upon terming this “Single Payer” just shows how far-wedged and firmly wedded their conception of healthcare as a transactional service presumably bound up with some sort of profit-making private enterprise nonsense in the first place].It would have taken some doing to get the American political system to actually look seriously at the proposal [and I note that Trump actually arguably started laying the groundwork for this by positively talking up ‘Single Payer’ in speeches and campaign appearances as much as seventeen years ago – during his previous Presidential run]; and it’s frankly disheartening to see the number of people who self-identify as being on the ‘left’ of the American political spectrum that’ve been gearing up to apparently die in a ditch for a massive-scale Insurance Industry politically embedded profit-making rort [which is, effectively, what ObamaCare puts a delightful, smiling human face upon – of a reasonably popular, principled-seeming President, no less]. But given the fact that pretty much *everyone* other than a rather small slice of Republicans, and a broader swathe of Democrats [acting out of both party and ideological loyalty] seem to hate the Affordable Care Act … surely it could have at least done with a shot? Trump had impressive political capital to pour into complete shakeups in other areas, why not with one of the areas he’s passionately advocated for reform in for most of the time that I’ve been alive?Of course, a cynic’s answer to this is that it never would have worked. As we saw with the attempt to pass RyanCare, partisan folks would have come out of the woodwork [on both sides, for that matter] to try and torpedo what would no doubt have been derisively labelled “BernieCare”. This is, again, partially due to the American political establishment’s evient bewilderment that there can be any such thing as a public healthcare system which doesn’t run through the insurance industry [seriously, this whole “unemployment insurance” thing they’ve got going even does social welfare that’d ordinarily be handled simply and directly by the state as an entitlement in an insurance-industry [if not always directly insurance firm] mold]; and also partially due to the fact, no doubt, that the absolutely HUGE insurance industry [truly, one of the last ‘great’ areas of economic activity within America not to have been completely hollowed out and downsized or shipped offshore] would have been lobbying so incredibly hard against any reform to their golden cash goose that the task of taking them OUT of the equation ought be described as less ‘Sisyphean” [although given the way healthcare reform keeps rolling up and down the political slopes like the boulder from that story, perhaps it’s not entirely inaccurate] and more ‘Sommean’. As in, a huge expenditure of effort to achieve very little except pain for one’s self:/

But out of all of this, there is perhaps one single bright lining. Namely, that there are escalating signs that the Trump era (and,in no small part the way his administration and allies do things) is beginning to Break the Republicans. After all, as we saw, RyanCare failed as a bill precisely because Republican hardliners couldn’t agree on whether the proposal didn’t go FAR ENOUGH on stripping away protections and cutting costs/taxes, or just right … and, for that matter, the number of ‘moderate’ Republicans who saw the RyanCare legislation as being a worse option than today’s Affordable Care Act.

There are, of course, other schism-points to be drawn out; and it’s not hard to find areas – particularly in foreign policy – wherein the level of animosity internal to the leading lights of hte Republican Party is now even icier and more internecine than Clinton v Sanders was for the Democrats. But it is not so easy to think of an area of purely /domestic/ politics wherein the fault-lines of the GoP have been so readily on show, recently.

In any case – and this perhaps says more about my own mindset than it does Trump’s – I cannot help but wonder whether the principled thing to do in such a situation would be to recognize that Republicans would never be united in support of ANY proposal to meaningfully (or, for thta matter, less meaningfully – incoherently, even) ‘reform’ Healthcare … and just throw hands up in the air about doing things “the Washington way”, and just push and drive incredibly hard for the actual institution of “Single Payer” healthcare.

As mentioned above, it might take a decent swathe of selling to both the American people, and I’d be genuinely surprised if such a proposal picked up serious legislative support [for reasons that are jus straight-out malefic given the evidence for such a policy-set’s efficacy] … but if anyone’s demonstrated an inimitable ability to take the politics of ‘consensus’ and throw them out on their ear … it’s Trump.It would have been inordinately good if he could have, on this occasion at least, used this power for Good rather than for … well … deeply held Republican talking points in lieu of gleaming principle.

Yesterday, two polls were released – the latest Roy Morgan andmost recent Reid Research. They’re both interesting, albeit for almost entirely different reasons.The Roy Morgan data is probably what folks with an implicit left-wing bias will be most interested in; due to its showing a reduction in National support of 4.5%, and corresponding rise in Labour/Greens support of 5% – for totals of 43.5%, 29.5%, and 14.5% respectively.